Cherringham--Scared to Death Read online

  The grand house looked suitably spooky in floodlights that had been gelled with green and yellow: spotlights sent giant bats flicking across the windows of the upper floors.

  And from the car park around him, a line of ghosts, zombies, witches and assorted spooks made their way laughing towards the already loud sounds of the Halloween party.

  Sarah had texted to say she was running late. He headed down the drive, inserting his vampire teeth and pulling his cloak tight around him.

  A live band somewhere in the house was already playing a decent cover of Thriller and Jack could hear laughter and singing.

  After the real horrors of the last couple of days, he thought: Hey, this is going to be fun!

  *

  Sarah checked her watch.

  “How much left to play?”

  “About forty-five minutes, I think,” said Daniel.

  “Think I’ll have to go in a minute … catch the rest tomorrow.”

  Sarah sat back in her seat, arms folded.

  So far, The Mummy’s Return had answered only one question — why had it taken so many years for a remake?

  The first half of the film had pretty much every cliché of tomb-raiding and vampire movies she’d ever seen, all thrown together with some pretty dubious performances.

  Good for a late-night laugh — but no big clues.

  Val was hardly in the thing at all — just as Billy had said. He played a British explorer tracking down the source of his family’s curse in the tombs of Egypt.

  Basil had the starring role of local potentate and part-time vampire.

  And Alyssia was the daughter of a sheikh who also was conveniently an archeological student.

  Sarah was about to give the whole thing up when — with a start — she recognised something totally unexpected on screen. A scene set in the potentate’s mansion, in a massive sitting room in the English style, with a fire burning in the grate, and three big sofas lined up in front of it. A suit of armour in the corner. Tall windows.

  There was no doubt about it — Basil’s great room in Hill House had been modelled on this very set!

  She leaned forward, watching intently as Basil Coates, looking suave (and evil too) entered the scene alone, and went over to a silver tray holding decanters and crystal tumblers.

  He poured two whiskies, then, carefully checking that he was still alone, drew from the pocket of his smoking jacket a small wrap of paper … and tipped a powder into one of the drinks.

  As Val Rayment appeared in the doorway behind him, in dinner jacket and monocle, Basil turned, smiled, walked over to him — and handed him the poisoned whisky.

  Val drained it in one, then went to one of the sofas by the fire and sat down.

  Basil poured him another whisky, took it over. The two laughed. Chatted briefly about the excavation. The conversation easy …

  Then Val’s face went white. He clutched his chest.

  The acting — not too bad.

  The whisky tumbler fell from his grasp. He reached forward to Basil.

  But Basil sat unmoved.

  As with a shudder, Val rolled from the sofa to the carpet, and lay … stone cold dead.

  Sarah sat back, open mouthed. “You can pause it there, Daniel. I’ve seen all I need to see.”

  She got up, found her phone and texted Jack.

  Then she rustled in her handbag, found her notepad and flicked the pages until she found Val Rayment’s number.

  She dialled. The phone rang. Then:

  “Val Rayment.”

  “Mr Rayment,” she said. “Sarah Edwards here. I need to talk to you … tonight.”

  *

  Ten minutes later, and still in costume, she’d grabbed her car keys and stood by the front door.

  She turned to her son.

  “Did I do good, Mum?”

  “Better than good, Daniel. Perfect. Look, when your friend gets here, could you do me a favour?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you get over to Lady Repton’s and find Jack for me? He’s not answering his phone. The service is so bad over there. I need him to join me over at Hill House.”

  Daniel’s hollow-eyed and ashen face took on an uncharacteristic (for a zombie) look of concern.

  “Wait a second. You’re not going to that creepy place on your own, are you?”

  “Jack will join me. Soon as you find him. And with this, well, let’s just say, we may have a lot to tell you tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure. My, um, friend should be here any minute. But, Mum — like Jack always says — be careful, yes?”

  She nodded, then dashed to the car, feeling a first drop of rain hit her shoulder. And as she climbed into the car, she saw, in the distance over Cherringham, a flicker of lightning.

  The dark clouds above ready to play their part in the evening ahead.

  16. When the Dead Talk

  Sarah stopped at the Hill House gate. It was open as if someone had dashed out without bothering to secure the bolt.

  Her hand touched the metal, the black paint flaking, chipped away by weather and age.

  Just like Hill House’s residents.

  And in that moment, she wondered …

  Should she wait for Jack? Bound to be here soon.

  But no. If Val was inside, best to confront him as soon as possible. Who knew what thoughts could be going on in his head?

  Now that he might suspect that the truth was known.

  She pushed the creaky gate open wider, as more drops of rain started falling.

  She pulled up the cowl of the matching cape for her Halloween costume, and raced to the front door of the red stone mansion.

  In the south, she saw a flash of lightning — the autumn storm building in intensity; building in threat.

  She grabbed the doorknob, and entered the house.

  *

  But once inside, she heard nothing. Alyssia — apparently away, dealing with the legal fallout from Basil’s death. Duncan, Karina — also vanished.

  Leaving — supposedly — only Val, the houseguest.

  But where was he? The house — which, when people walked through it, could creak like a living organism, almost wheezing with the footsteps — was tonight deathly quiet.

  Funny, she immediately thought. Why did I think deathly quiet?

  And, as she moved past the empty sitting room, down the hallway, past the staircase, she came to the locked door that led down to Basil’s own personal house of horrors.

  His crypt with mementoes from his great films.

  Except now …

  That door was open.

  Within, she could see the wall lights, flickering as before. Was that flickering on purpose? A little “twist” that Basil liked?

  As if, at any moment, the lights could go out.

  Again, another hesitation.

  Jack will be here soon.

  She could just stop. Stand here. Wait.

  But that idea — just standing here — seemed no less … disconcerting than pressing on.

  Talking to Val, even suspecting what she did, would be better than the sepulchral quiet of the house.

  She went to the door of the crypt.

  Pulled it open wider, revealing the stone steps leading down ahead. Lights on.

  She took a breath as she pushed the cowl off her head.

  Not the Halloween night she had planned. No flutes of bubbly and dancing.

  Instead, this.

  She took a tentative step down.

  *

  At the bottom of the stairs, a booming crash.

  But not from in here. A massive thunderclap from outside, the storm moving closer to an unsuspecting Cherringham.

  At first, all she saw were the props from Basil’s films.

  Scary enough … with her being alone, no group of people or a single malt to fortify herself.

  But then a footstep. From over by the electrical device that once held the ingénue who would become Basil’s wife.

 
; Another step, and emerging from the shadows, she saw Val.

  And the single word he said … chilling.

  “Well …”

  *

  Normally, Sarah would wait.

  Get whoever she wanted to question to start talking, perhaps tripping over their words, their story … as they realised that they were under suspicion.

  Guilt could be so powerful that way.

  But down here, the smell so dank, the lighting doing little to dispel the shadows, she felt the need to push at Val.

  Her words coming fast.

  “I-I saw the movie.”

  “Hmm?”

  “The Mummy’s Return. Just like all your other pranks, the ones you helped with—”

  “Ah. So you know about all that, do you? The noose, the fabled bathtub of blood …?”

  “But there was one little trick that we didn’t see, wasn’t there? Taken right from the film. All that careful research they did, back then. So accurate. So clever.”

  Val’s voice shifted. It went from smooth aplomb, to suddenly a having a bite.

  “You don’t know … anything.”

  For a second Sarah froze. She resisted the temptation to look back at the stairs as another thunderclap boomed overhead, as if the storm was now hanging over Hill House itself.

  “The scene in the movie … in a house not unlike this. Your character drinks his whisky. But in the film, Basil’s character had added something.”

  She waited. Val said nothing.

  “That poison he put in … undetectable, especially since its effects duplicated a heart attack. And poor Basil — everyone knowing about his heart. Who’d question that it would just give up?”

  And at that, Val turned to the device behind him with its wires and straps, crowned by what looked like massive electrical transformers.

  The scientific claptrap from another era.

  She heard a “click”.

  And the device came to life, sparks jumping from electrode to electrode. Other rippling waves of bright electricity nearly blinding, racing up exposed metal.

  It was supposed to be non-functional.

  That’s what Basil had said.

  But here it was, terrifying, alive.

  And when Val turned back to her, it was as if he had become a completely different person.

  And with that, Sarah felt only one thing — pure, chilling fear.

  *

  “It was on here, that we both saw her, the beauty Alyssia. Strapped to these wires. So young, so beautiful.”

  He took a step away from the machine, towards her. And Sarah took a step to the side.

  “We both desired her. Who wouldn’t desire such a treasure? But—”

  Another burst of thunder, and Sarah thought … in another few moments she would have to scream.

  Even though there was no one to hear.

  “But I fell ill. Ha! Fell ill? Makes it sound like an accident, doesn’t it? Fell ill. But that was no accident. Basil knew what he was doing. I disappeared. And he claimed her. He won that prize — just as he won every prize since!”

  Another step. She realised that Val — moving closer, forcing her to move back — was lost to the past.

  To his hate for Basil.

  To his desire for Alyssia.

  But his steps had Sarah edging closer to the snapping, crackling electrical monstrosity; Val growing more agitated with every moment.

  “You know nothing. You are nothing.”

  Val turned to the machine as if he just had an idea.

  The device looked deadly.

  Val raised his hand.

  Which is when Sarah heard the door from above burst noisily open.

  Then steps. Flickering lights at the back. Shadows, light and darkness. Someone bolting down to the crypt.

  She didn’t have to look to know …

  Jack.

  But when she turned back to the now-twisted actor, lost to his passion, lost to his hate, lost to his memories, she realised that’s not what Val saw.

  *

  Jack stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

  He saw the machine. Lights fizzing, bare wires. Not good. And Sarah so close. A misstep, and she would have her back against it.

  Jack raised his hands. And his cape flew up in the air with the move, the flickering lights behind him.

  He could see Val, Sarah, the device … but he, in his costume, was a mere outline.

  He was about to shout at Val, order him to freeze.

  But he didn’t have to do that.

  *

  Sarah heard Val, now distracted, yell at Jack.

  Yell at the vampire …

  “What? You? You’re dead. You’re … dead!”

  And for a moment she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  But then she realised … Jack in the vampire costume, the cape.

  Val losing it … the past alive in this room.

  It’s Basil.

  Back from the dead.

  “Y-you can’t be here!”

  “Because you poisoned him?” Sarah said, talking over the loud snaps and pops of the crackling device. “The same poison used in the film? Only this time for real …”

  And Val looked left and right, a caged animal.

  Jack was blocking the way to the stairs. Val stumbled to the side, looking for anything that he might grab for support, his breathing ragged, panting steadily.

  He stumbled into the sarcophagus case: the lid flipped open and the mummy rose as if eager to clutch the crazed actor.

  Sarah moved quickly away from the electrical machine.

  The mummy rising, hand outstretched, made Val recoil, his body stumbling backwards, this time into the sputtering crossbeams, alive with electricity.

  Did it shock him? Would he, in this tortured state, even notice if it did?

  The crossbeams rocked back when his body hit them, and then collapsed, smashing down onto the stone floor, spitting sparks everywhere.

  We’d better get out of here, Sarah thought. This whole place could go up in flames.

  All that dry wood upstairs.

  Jack had come to her.

  “We gotta go …” he said. “Need to get him to come as well.”

  But seeing the two vampires together, Sarah in her costume, Jack in his, sent Val flying back again, reeling, scrambling to stand. Reality and imagination now one.

  Heading towards the guillotine …

  Tilting back into it. The apparatus shaking, wobbly, and the blade itself vibrating.

  She saw Jack race to him, vampire now turned rugby player, crashing into Val, sending him flying to the ground just as the blade did indeed spring free, and come crashing down.

  Val shook — his eyes wide as Jack helped him to his feet.

  And as Jack led him, stumbling, dazed, up the stairs, Sarah following, she thought: Even at the end of this mystery, life — and death — in Hill House continues to mirror art.

  17. The End

  Sarah looked outside, where Alan’s patrol car’s lights made the red mansion ripple with colours. Red brick mixed with red, then blue, then the bright white of headlights.

  A fire crew had raced into the crypt. Fortunately, since the place was all stonework, they could act quickly; and now there was no danger of those sparks bringing the place down.

  Now in the hallway of the mansion, Alan looked at them.

  Val in the patrol car, cuffed and hunched over in the back seat.

  Alan’s pad still open.

  “He’s admitted it all, and with what you told me, I think I know everything.”

  “Lot of sorting out to do. With Basil’s wife, daughter …” Jack said.

  Alan looked away. “Part of my job.”

  Sarah looked at Jack. That business in the crypt over, he looked like — well — someone in need of a good Halloween party.

  “I guess,” Sarah said, “we can go then?”

  “Yeah. Any more questions, I’ll check in tomorrow morning.”r />
  The officer turned to Jack.

  “I have to say, Jack. You do look rather, um, imposing with the cape and all that.”

  “First time being a vampire, Alan.”

  But then Alan’s eyes went back to Sarah and she was self-consciously aware again about her vampire costume.

  Well, certainly attention-getting.

  “Okay. You guys, you’d better head over to Lady Repton’s party. If I get some time later, paperwork done, I might pop over, in costume as a … policeman.”

  And he laughed.

  Sarah turned to Jack.

  “Ready to brave the rain?”

  He turned to her as she pulled up her cowl, and also yanked the cape tight.

  “For a martini and maybe a dance with … a vampire?”

  Big grin.

  Like the sun coming out.

  “You’d better believe it.”

  And with a nod to Alan, they raced out to the storm and their cars. Plenty of party time left. This eventful evening was still young.

  The End

  Cherringham — A Cosy Crime Series

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