CHAPTER ONE
‘Bill, are you sure the children will be safe with those two in charge?’ asked Alison nervously.We were standing in the hall, our bags packed for Dorset. It still shocks me how difficult it is for us to get away by ourselves. It was already spring, and with the bailiffs still lurking about the place our escape to the country was well overdue.
The children, Ben, aged ten, and nine-year-old Trixie, had insisted right up to the last minute on coming with us on the house search. They were now opting to stay put with Granny and our Romanian au pair, Vadoma, whose gypsy links, flashing eyes and anarchical attitude constantly inspired them to rebellion.
From up the stairs, Granny was glaring impatiently down at us. ‘Hurry up, it’ll be dark soon!’
‘Yes, have good journey!’ Vadoma was waving a little too enthusiastically, I thought. I couldn’t help noticing Granny’s conspiratorial wink at her.
‘Bye! We’re gone!’ I yelled back, nudging Alison out of the front door and towards the car. ‘They’ll be fine’ I tried to reassure her. ‘I’ve hidden the gin where your mother will never find it.What can possibly go wrong?’
But I should have known better. Granny was over ninety and her bad habits were getting worse. She would gamble on anything, especially horses, about which she knew nothing. She picked them on their names, their colours, anything but their actual ability to run a couple of miles without falling over. And now the lottery was causing friction within the family.
‘Remember when Granny practically killed Ben?’ asked Alison.
‘Yes, and he deserved it’ I laughed. He had been entrusted with her lottery money to collect her tickets, but had come back several hours later with neither. ‘Sorry Granny, no luck this time, I’ve checked them for you’ he grinned, shamelessly sporting a new pair of trainers. She wouldn’t get caught like that again. She had taken to checking every ticket herself with furious concentration, her head pivoting like a tennis spectator between the results and the tickets. And when she lost (a weekly event of high drama) she cursed everybody and retired with a bottle of gin to her lair in the crow’s nest of the top floor, already with a gleam of low cunning in her eyes as she plotted the next week’s numbers.
And she genuinely believed that Vadoma’s gypsy background could be harnessed to help.
‘But Vadoma gets on well with Granny, so I’m sure she can control her’ I said hopefully.
‘Huh!’ from Alison. It’s amazing how she can put so much into a word that isn’t even a word.
Ten minutes later, we were approaching the Chiswick roundabout when Alison realised she’d forgotten her Rescue Remedy. ‘It’s no good, we’ll have to go back. They won’t have that sort of thing in Dorset.’
The house was quiet as we crept back indoors. Too quiet, perhaps. From the TV room came the faint sounds of cartoons. Well, at least the children were occupied. Alison called faintly ‘Vadoma?’ No reply.
We sneaked upstairs to the bathroom where Alison keeps her Bach flower essences. As we passed Vadoma’s door, we heard Granny’s chortle, followed by ‘They never search in here. Gin helps my creativity you know.’ Clinking of glasses. ‘Bottoms up!’
Alison and I looked at each other. Did we dare push the door open a crack, or was that snooping?
We snooped.There they were, the conniving pair, curtains closed, Vadoma hunched over a circle of candles.
‘Patience, Babushka, we will find your winning numbers. Long as you promise to share wins with Vadoma, okay?’
‘Yes, anything you say, just get on with it dear.’ Granny took a long swig of gin, rubbing her hands together.
‘Numbers have magic, yes? We use ancient art of divination. We begin with your birthday, Babushka. March 10, 1920.’
Gently Alison closed the door again. She looked at me, then took a swig of her Rescue Remedy. ‘I thought you said the children were safe?’
‘Harmless amusements’ I swallowed uneasily. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll only be gone a couple of days.’
So, taking a deep breath and promising sacrifices to mollify the gods, we left them to it.
*****
The village of Little Daunting was approached down a steep and winding lane with rounded hills on each side. It was April, and winter was still in force. It was a grey, raw sort of day with low clouds and a warm drizzle falling. Not the best time to look at a new idea, but when you have a bailiff hard on your brush you can’t afford to delay.
On the hills the grass was suffering from overgrazing, with no growth during the coldness of winter, and the forlorn horses, sheep and cattle gave it all an appearance of neglect. Along the muddy paths and tracks, puddles of dirty water stretched endlessly to the overhanging horizon, a merging of leaden dullness. The trees were generally bare with the rain finding no support, so the countless puddles were constantly growing, changing shape and merging in an uncontrolled riot of anarchy.
I rolled the old Mercedes estate to a stop to take it all in. There was a promise of spring in the pinky-white foam of the blackthorn thickets in the hedgerows, those bastions of year- round shelter which seem to line every lane in Dorset and Devon.Yellow primroses were beginning to stud the banks, and if you looked carefully in the damper parts where the hedgerows merged into woodland you could see the first lords-and-ladies, their flytraps starting to emerge, a trial of temptation and death for small insects who get too close. The dog’s mercury was starting to flower, a classical salute to the Greek god who discovered its healing properties.
‘Vadoma and the kids will love this’ I said hopefully. ‘Poisons, medicine, lots of mud and puddles, as well as space for animals.’
‘Perhaps’ said Alison, reserving judgement. ‘But we’re not buying a copse.’ Ever the pragmatist, my wife.
I climbed out of the car, stretched and looked at the scene around me. The bare ground was a blanket of fallen catkins, with the early violets and the pink flowers of the dead nettle giving flashes of colour to the greenness and the drizzling damp. The hoof marks of foraging roe deer stamped between the cowslips. I could hear an explosion of bird life and the harsh call of the pheasant. Skeins of geese and wild ducks were already searching the fields for the early growth.The woodland was busy with nesting birds, blackbirds, finches of many types, while magpies and jays looked opportunistically for unattended nests. Grey squirrels were searching everywhere.
I could imagine what a warm spring day would bring; bumble bees, honey bees, butterflies, dragonflies hovering over the wetlands, bright yellow celandines and the later flowering violets providing a rich food source. And a pandemonium of rabbits, foxes and badgers.
And so towards the river which bustled with new life; sticklebacks, newts, tadpoles all frantically living and growing while desperately avoiding predators like the kingfisher whose colourful tunic belies a harsh aggression. Myriads of water- boatmen, pond skaters skimming the surface, never resting. Water voles repairing the winter ravishes to their homes...
‘Come on! How long is that pee going to take?’ shouted Alison from the car. I got back in and fired the engine up for the final mile.
The narrow road took us past a row of small thatched cottages, with low doors, a small window either side and a row of three windows above with their old straw roofs playing host to a shambles of moss, weeds and greenery. There was even an ancient forge where the blacksmith was still at work over his glowing, flaming furnace. And so into the main green of the village.
Little Daunting was one of those quintessentially English villages where it seemed an outrage to bring in outsiders. We had cynically expected upended supermarket trolleys proudly displaying their crooked wheels, discarded takeaway cartons whiffling randomly in the wind and reappearing in the most unlikely places, crisp packets, carrier bags, bin liners, all struggling to be noticed and to be congratulated on their survival. Perhaps there would be discarded tyres, rubbish tipped in the hedges, even the stripped hulks of abandoned cars. But maybe this was a horror yet to come, a premature judgement of future sins because as yet there was none of this. Even to think of such a sacrilege, in such a setting, was like swearing before the vicar.
Before us stood the Bell, the village’s smarter drinking establishment and the place we remembered so well from our previous visit all those years before.
‘Look, that’s the room we had’ I said, pointing. Fond memories.
‘We had to close the window’ murmured Alison, a half smile on her face.
‘Only because of the noise you were making.’ ‘Well we were courting.’
It was three o’clock in the afternoon.’
It was three o’clock in the afternoon.’
Alison giggled in that infectious way of hers. The Bell’s rival, the less pompous Green Man, faced us on the far side of the green. Between them were several large, square Georgian houses, punctuated by several sets of expensive-looking thatched cottages. On the green outside it were tables with umbrellas and beautifully-tended flower beds, all contributing to the idyllic pastoral scene. The village was even smaller than we remembered it, with no more than half a dozen shops including a baker, a Co-op, a newsagent, a beauty salon with two chairs and a fish-and-chip shop. Facing them was Little Daunting’s greatest claim to architectural importance, a stately Norman church now dedicated to St George.
Clearly the most important task was to find a house which would give our family plenty of room for tantrums and door slamming, with spare rooms for guests. We had arranged to meet the local agent, a Mr Quentin Dawlish of Gurney, Gurney and Dawlish, on the village green in front of the Bell. Mr Dawlish had promised us on the phone that he had a property up his sleeve which would suit us, but he had been strangely reticent about the details.
I was rather hoping he would be late and we would be forced to kill time over a pint in the lounge bar of the Bell, just for old time’s sake, but the moment I parked the car on the gravel the door of an old Land Rover a few yards away slammed and a large and smiling man advanced towards me with a hand outstretched.
Mr Dawlish turned out to be a genial chap whose large head, fringed with wisps of grey, gave him a medieval sacerdotal look, above a drink-ravaged face with loosely hanging jowls. The purple nose, the weak, fleshy lips and the dimpled chin, all dominated by a roadmap of veins, spoke of many long evenings in the pub. His rotund form and wire- framed spectacles softened the impression by giving him an affable, Billy Bunter look. He looked sixty, but was probably much younger.
‘Welcome to Little Daunting. Good journey?’ Without waiting for the answer, he launched confidently into his spiel. ‘I have just the place for you to see. It’s a big manor house, but it’s been empty for a while. The probate from the last owner’s will took rather a long time to sort out, so many vultures swooping down to fight over it. But it’s now free and on the market. And there’s no chain!’ He laid great emphasis on these words. ‘So cash is king.’ He gave an oily laugh.
‘OK sounds great, lead on!’ I said expansively, as if I was the kind of man who invariably had his pockets stuffed with fifty-pound notes. I caught an imploring look from Alison: for God’s sake try to behave!
‘But I must emphasise that it’s been empty for rather a long time’ said Mr Dawlish, ominously. He bade us follow him and strode off surprisingly rapidly along the green. I bounced along behind him, my eyes furiously scanning the view to see where he could be taking us. He had covered some two hundred yards beyond the Green Man (well within my MSD, or Maximum Staggering Distance) when he stopped, swung round, and gestured to his left.
There before us, set well back from the green, was a big square house of uncertain age, but probably last worked on (and certainly last painted) in Victorian times. The colourless, dusty windows gave it a forlorn appearance.Yet it was obvious that this house must once have been rather handsome. It was built of wonderful honey-coloured sandstone, with Boston ivy running rampant wherever its tendrils could reach, obscuring some of the upstairs windows and embracing the triangular gables under monstrously high chimneys. I could sense the bleakness of an unfurnished house, lonely and unloved.Yet it was a well-proportioned building which must once have been the envy of the village.
Mr Dawlish took out a large key and probed the lock. The heavy double-fronted doors opened inwards with an effort, hinges squealing in protest.
‘Come, come, see what you think’ urged Mr Dawlish. Alison hung back, her body language expressing her feelings all too clearly. I pretended not to notice and followed the agent’s instruction. I stepped inside and she reluctantly followed.
The hall was high and dark, with bare walls decorated only by the ghostly outlines of long-removed paintings. At the far side was an ostentatious inglenook fireplace, anguished and desolate. I looked around. Several rooms led off the hallway, all identically depressing. Each had an empty grate and a large and ugly mantelpiece. The paint on the doors, walls and window frames was cracked and blistered. The bare treads of the spiral staircase were covered in a litter of refuse, old letters, papers and countless generations of beetle bodies, a few live and scurrying ones still among them. It presented a depressingly gaunt and haggardly lifeless face to the world.
Somewhere in the gloom under the stairs, something small and quick scurried to shelter; a mouse, or more likely a rat.
‘I’m not going to pretend it’s in wonderful condition’ said Mr Dawlish gently, like a doctor saying ‘I’m not going to pretend that a hernia is a good thing.’
We began to explore, taking a room each, then rejoining forces each time it threatened to become too much. Upstairs there was a warren of rooms, all as neglected and colourless as those downstairs.There was that desolation and desperation of careless solitude. The two bathrooms had cast-iron baths and basins whose colour, if they had any, had long been obscured by dust and dirt. Ancient cobwebs veiled the window of the main bathroom; loose strands drifted across the casement, stirring slightly as we entered, seeming to beckon to us.
‘What’s that?’ said Alison sharply. The noise came again, a most peculiar groan from somewhere far below stairs, as if someone had been awoken unwillingly from a long sleep.
‘Just the heating, I expect’ I commented.
‘There is no heating!’ snapped Alison.
She stayed strutting around on the first floor while I followed Mr Dawlish in silence up the next flight of stairs to the attic, or rather a linked series of attics. It was all the same story. There were piles of dust-laden broken furniture and beds, cracked mirrors above drunken chests of drawers from which some of the feet had mysteriously wandered off, low sweeping ceilings merging into grimy walls, punctuated by poky, cobweb-blocked windows. Stray plaster had collected in filthy piles to add to the depressing and dismal atmosphere.
‘There is no heating!’ snapped Alison.
She stayed strutting around on the first floor while I followed Mr Dawlish in silence up the next flight of stairs to the attic, or rather a linked series of attics. It was all the same story. There were piles of dust-laden broken furniture and beds, cracked mirrors above drunken chests of drawers from which some of the feet had mysteriously wandered off, low sweeping ceilings merging into grimy walls, punctuated by poky, cobweb-blocked windows. Stray plaster had collected in filthy piles to add to the depressing and dismal atmosphere.
We returned, shuddering and with long faces, to the ground floor.The kitchen was large but predictably old, dark and bare, empty of the warmth of that ‘heart of the house’ feeling one expects from a kitchen. I had visions of disease-ridden rats growing bold, aggressively foraging with cruel eyes shining in the shadowy gloom, crowning vindictive white sharpness, jaws already grinding in anticipation...
We did not explore the cellars. The black hostile vault we could glimpse through the ill-fitting, ramshackle door was too much. Rising from that dark tunnel of cold damp air came a stagnant, oppressive and musty smell of decay, wrapped in darkness, deep silence and dust; and more dust. I shivered as the blackness seemed to challenge any intrusion; there was below us a sinister atmosphere of secrecy, wickedness and overpowering fear.
‘As you can see, it has been a beautiful house’ said Mr Dawlish ruefully. ‘I know we estate agents always say this, but it really does have an awful lot of...’
‘Potential’ said Alison sarcastically.
‘You’re absolutely right!’ said Mr Dawlish, entirely missing her tone. ‘I do agree.’
‘Thank you for showing us around’ I said. ‘I think we’ll explore a little, perhaps have some lunch in the pub. I’ll let you know what we think in a few hours.’
‘I suggest the Green Man, not the Bell’ he said confidentially. ‘The Bell’s been taken over by a chain. It’s all eighteen-year-old barmaids in mini skirts who can’t speak English and fifteen quid for a ploughman’s served with mozzarella and kiwi fruit. And the beer’s appalling.’
‘Thanks for the tip’ Alison said, her eyes rolling in horror at the thought of all those mini skirts. Nobody asked my opinion.
‘There’s one more thing I will say to you, and this really is between you and me’ he added. ‘I know the property is on the market for four-seventy-five, but I think it is fair to say that the owner might well be amenable to an offer.’ Here he winked and made an exaggerated downward gesture with the open palm of his hand, as if pushing down the plunger of a cafetière. His meaning was clear; the price might well be reduced, perhaps very considerably.
The Green Man proved to be a cheerful establishment which at that time of day was littered in equal measure by tatty, well-thumbed copies of the morning papers and equally tatty locals reading them. Once inside, Alison let rip.
‘I will not live in that house, however cheap it is! I don’t know where to start. It’s filthy, it has a horrible creepy feeling to it and it’s probably haunted. And those are the good points! Do you want to hear the bad ones?’
Before I could answer, she was fortunately interrupted from the bar.
‘Are you the people looking at the Old Manor? You’ve got a find there. Do you want to know its history?’
‘Go on then’ I said cheerfully.
He grinned, leaning across the bar. ‘I’m Steve, by the way.’ ‘Nice to meet you. Bill Cavendish. This is my wife Alison.’ ‘It goes back an awful long way’ he said, grinning.
‘We’re in no hurry. Oh, let me get you one.’
‘That’s very kind of you sir, I’ll have a whisky if I may.Yes, many stories, very strange some of them. And you’ve come to the right man. I’m a bit of a local historian, you see.’
He grinned, leaning across the bar. ‘I’m Steve, by the way.’ ‘Nice to meet you. Bill Cavendish. This is my wife Alison.’ ‘It goes back an awful long way’ he said, grinning.
‘We’re in no hurry. Oh, let me get you one.’
‘That’s very kind of you sir, I’ll have a whisky if I may.Yes, many stories, very strange some of them. And you’ve come to the right man. I’m a bit of a local historian, you see.’
‘Do tell us all about it’ I said, with a mixture of excitement and an uneasy feeling of premonition. Alison was sitting with a glare on her face, pretending to take an interest in an old copy of Dorset Life.
‘The stories go back at least four hundred years’ said Steve. ‘The really interesting stuff starts around the time of the Civil War in the 1640s. At that time witches and devils were a serious part of everyday life. In fact it was so bad that the Government appointed a Witchfinder General called Matthew Hopkins. By all accounts he was a very cruel man who was responsible for many innocent hangings.
‘Now Matthew had a younger brother called Joshua, who owned and lived in the Manor. He was there for about forty years in the mid seventeenth century, and he was even nastier than his brother. He was a witchfinder too, but he was also a magistrate with a keen interest in alchemy, and as an extension of that, he was heavily into medicine.’
Alison sighed, rolled her eyes, folded her arms and stared out of the window. But she had put down the copy of Dorset Life.
‘Joshua’s great interest was hunting down witches. He would have them condemned in his own court and then hanged.The bodies were always disowned by their families, so he was able to use them for medical research, which was just what he wanted. He believed in one of the central themes of alchemy, that life could be renewed indefinitely with a sort of universal medicine. He believed that physical bodies could be rejuvenated, that they have a spiritual parallel, but you had to understand the physical body first.
‘Apparently he dissected bodies. He did horrific experiments during the torture stage of getting confessions. He liked to cut out...’
At this point Alison got to her feet. ‘I really don’t want to hear any more about this. I’m going outside for some fresh air.’ She shot me a look and marched off.
‘I’ll be with you in a moment, darling’ I said. ‘Sorry, you were saying?’
‘No worries. Anyway, Joshua kept a mausoleum. Body parts. It was all recorded in his diary, but nobody knows what happened to it. And then the rest of the bodies, the bits he didn’t want, were buried in unhallowed ground near the church. But that wasn’t the end of it.The Manor was supposed to be the centre of a smuggling operation. The contraband would be landed in the estuary and then stored in the cellars. Joshua of course became very rich and was therefore untouchable by the law, although he used to hang the occasional smuggler to show he was doing his duty. He eventually died as a recluse, but there have been many rumours, and some say they have seen spirits from that time which still haunt the church and the Manor.’
‘Why do you think they still hang around?’ I asked, completely hooked on the story.
‘The theory is that spirits like this are so traumatised that they are stuck here on earth. Maybe they want revenge in some form and just aren’t able to move on to the spirit world. We really don’t know why some stay around. It’s said that they come back to haunt the house, to search for the diary and their body parts which were stolen by Joshua.There’s supposed to be a hidden underground passage from the church and the catacombs which goes to the house.’
‘Fascinating. But no one knows where it is?’
‘No idea, apparently.’ He shot me a sly look, and I wondered if he knew more than he was letting on.
‘It would be a hell of a place to own. Good buy for you, I should think.They won’t find many takers for a place that size round here.’
I left the pub deep in thought. I had no idea how I was going to sell all this to Alison.
Outside on the green, we sat and watched the ducks on the pond.
‘If you think I’m going to live in that spooky, damp, depressing house you are completely mental’ said Alison.
‘I think it’s fascinating. Didn’t you like Steve?’ I had seen the way she had flashed her smile when he had introduced himself. ‘He has got nice eyes. Got the gift of the gab, hasn’t he? But there’s something about him I’m not sure about. Or the house.’ ‘Come on, it’s superb. It’s everything we’ve wanted. And this talk about ghosts and witches and things that go bump in the night is just so much rubbish, you know that. Then of course, if there really was an alchemist living there, we might find his pot of gold.’
‘You just want a big house so you can make your friends in London jealous. So they can see how well you’ve recovered.’ I had to admit that she had a point there. She knew me too well. ‘Just imagine living in a house like that, though’ I said gently. ‘It’s beautiful. It’s huge. And you’re right, it wouldn’t half piss Caroline and Hugh off.’ I chortled at the thought.
‘Four hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds seems a lot of money to spend just to make my sister jealous’ responded Alison. ‘We could get a lovely modern four- bedroom house for that.’
‘Don’t be so boring!’ I countered. ‘Look, I bet we can get it down a bit. I bet we could get them down to four hundred and fifty, even less. That would leave us three hundred K for improvements. We could afford a decent holiday. You can go shopping, proper shopping. I’ll take you to Knightsbridge for the day, special treat.’
‘One day’s shopping? Big deal. Tempting, and thank you. But really, come on!’
A shout came from the direction of the pub, and I looked over to see Mr Dawlish bowling across the grass towards us. His demeanour seemed more confident than before.
‘Mr Cavendish, Mrs Cavendish! I’ve just spoken to our vendor. I have some very good news.’
‘Oh no’ muttered Alison. ‘Don’t tell me, he’s found a charming little slaughterhouse that’s going for a song.’
Mr Dawlish hovered on the grass, addressing us as we sat on the bench. ‘As I intimated, they are prepared to drop the price very considerably’ he said. ‘If you felt able to offer say, four hundred thousand...?’
‘That’s very interesting’ I said. ‘In fact we were just discussing it. Could you give us a few minutes? Perhaps in the lounge bar in ten?’
‘No! Not even at four hundred thousand!’ said Alison as Mr Dawlish retreated. But I could see she was weakening.We both knew that once it was up together, the house would be worth twice as much. And we knew the right people to do it, back in town.
‘We’d have nearly as much again in the bank, Al. And it couldn’t cost more than a hundred thou to do it up. It would be a wonderful project for you. Us.’
‘Hmm.Two trips to Knightsbridge.’
‘Three, if you like.’
‘You’re mad.’ She shook her head in despair. I had won.
‘I love you’ I said, kissing her neck and getting to my feet. I shouldered my way into the pub and saw Mr Dawlish hunched over the bar, talking in a low voice to Steve. He jumped up when he heard me come in, his face shining with hope.
‘Three, if you like.’
‘You’re mad.’ She shook her head in despair. I had won.
‘I love you’ I said, kissing her neck and getting to my feet. I shouldered my way into the pub and saw Mr Dawlish hunched over the bar, talking in a low voice to Steve. He jumped up when he heard me come in, his face shining with hope.
‘We’ve made some enquiries with our friends in the building trade’ I lied. ‘There are some serious damp and structural problems, as you know.’That part was not a lie. ‘We would need to budget at least two hundred thousand on that place before we could even move in.We can make you an offer, but I’m afraid we are not prepared to go over three hundred and fifty thousand.’
A brief look of panic crossed Mr Dawlish’s face. He thought for a moment. ‘I am fairly sure’ he said ‘that I could persuade the vendor to meet you in the middle.Very sure, if you catch my drift.’
I was tempted to stand my ground, but I knew that at three hundred and seventy-five grand the Old Manor was one hell of a good buy. I was full of impatience to conclude the deal. And I knew I had now found the vendor’s lowest price.
I marched triumphantly out on to the green.
‘Done’ I said. ‘And twenty-five grand extra in the bank for a holiday. Or a racehorse, for that matter.’
‘OK, well done’ said Alison. ‘I suppose. And Mum might like the racehorse.’
From the depths of her handbag her mobile began to chime and she dug it out from a pile of papers. ‘It’s Vadoma’ she said, reading the screen. ‘Hello? Vadoma? What? Slow down... who?...Ohno! Where were you? That’s a disaster.We’ll be back as soon as we can. In the meantime try to get him out of the house, and don’t let him take anything!’ She cut the call and hurled the phone back into her bag.
‘We’d better get back fast’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Somehow that bailiff got into the house. I couldn’t get much sense from Vadoma, she sounded hysterical. And apparently Mum has disappeared.’
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