Chapter Four
“FRIDAY NIGHT, babe! I thought we’d check out Despots, if you’ve no other plans,” Beth called from the shower. “Actually, sorry, what am I thinking? Of course you don’t have other plans, unless you have a date with a canvas, that is?”
I willed my mock anger to penetrate the bathroom door. “Ha, ha. Very funny. In case you haven’t noticed, my brushes have been dry since I moved here, although I do plan to dust them down tomorrow,” I shouted back. “And, yes, I do fancy a drink tonight. Why not?”
“Great. Justin’s coming round at eight thirty, and I told Marie we’d see her there. Her friend Carmen is staying at her place tonight, so we’ll get to meet her too.”
“You already had all this planned, didn’t you? What if I’d said no?”
Beth laughed. “We’d have gone without you.”
By the time we arrived at the club, it was buzzing, and with more luck than management, we managed to find a free table in the corner and squashed ourselves around it. The music was passable, and Beth and Justin decided to make a spectacle of themselves on the dance floor, flirting with anything in trousers while the rest of us watched and laughed.
A rather nerdy-looking boy with glasses and buck teeth squatted down next to me. “Excuse me, would you like to dance?” he asked.
Marie giggled. “Sure she would.”
I threw her a shut up stare. “Um, I don’t think so. Thanks anyway,” I answered with a forced smile.
He shrugged, and as he walked away, I smacked Marie’s arm playfully. “Behave, or I’ll tell Jack you said he was cute.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
The evening unfolded as we chatted away. Carmen certainly liked to talk. I found out all about her work on the switchboard at the police station in Carleigh, how she still lived at home with her mum and her annoying younger sister, and the fact that she’d had a string of relationships, all of which had ended badly. Her speech was enough to put me off men for life.
After a couple of rounds, it was my turn to get the drinks in, and as I rose from my chair, I bumped into Jack. He stared at my breasts and asked them to dance. I answered on their behalf. “No, thanks. Why don’t you ask Marie?” Ah, sweet revenge.
“Marie? Who’s Marie? I fancy you,” he slurred, still staring at my breasts and jabbing the right-hand one with his finger.
I glanced at Marie, who gave me a wry smile before I pushed Jack to one side, dismissing him. “You’re drunk.”
“Just the way I like them,” said Justin, catching Jack as he stumbled. “I’ll take good care of him.” Justin had fancied Jack for ages, and as far as I was concerned, he was welcome to him.
Perching on a stool at the bar, I placed my order with the hassled-looking barman.
“On the house, Martin,” a perfectly accented voice said behind me.
The barman looked up from pouring a drink and nodded once. I turned to decline the offer and found myself face to face with the dark-haired, dark-eyed, rather arrogant-looking man whom I’d seen entering the club on my first night in town.
“I don’t believe I’ve seen you at Despots before,” he said. “I’m sure I would have remembered such a pretty face.” A slick grin stretched across his face. “Welcome to my humble abode.” He presented the room by circling his hand around slowly before offering it for me to shake. “I’m Vincent.”
Vincent’s appearance was as perfect as his accent, and his sharply cut dark suit, stiff white shirt and red tie gave him an air of authority, but he had to be at least thirty, and there was something about him that felt slightly sinister and made me uncomfortable.
“Pleased to meet you,” I said, nervously shaking his hand. “I love your club.” I turned to pick up the loaded tray. “You’ll have to excuse me. My friends are waiting, so I’d better get back. Thanks for the drinks.”
He smiled, showing a perfect set of brilliant white teeth. “Anytime, beautiful.”
I returned to the table and passed around the drinks.
“I saw that,” Carmen said, glancing back towards the bar. “You don’t want to go there.”
“Sorry? Oh, you mean Vincent. Why?”
“First-name terms already? Sophie, be careful. Coming to his club is one thing, but don’t socialise with him. In fact, try to stay unobtrusive, if possible,” she said, moving closer so she didn’t have to shout over the music. “You don’t want to be noticed by them. There are stories.”
Curiosity had always been my downfall. When I was younger, I’d once got my hand stuck in a bird box because I’d been trying to see if there were any eggs inside it. My dad had had to cut me free with a handsaw.
Carmen had my attention. “Who are ‘them’? And what kind of stories?”
“Scary ones. He’s a Reith. They’re dangerous. People have been disappearing, and others have died. I mean, there’s usually a plausible story, and there’s never enough evidence to pin anything on them, but somehow the Reiths are always mentioned.” Carmen paused and took a sip of her drink. “Particularly the elder brother.”
“Ooo, do tell. I love a bit of gossip,” Justin said, now cradling a slumbering Jack’s head in his lap. Everyone glanced across at him, and he started wiggling his protruding tongue from side to side whilst moving Jack’s head up and down.
“He’d so kill you if he woke up.” Beth laughed before turning back to Carmen. “Go on. Tell us more.”
“I shouldn’t really talk about this stuff in here. You never know who might be listening,” Carmen whispered as she nervously scanned the room. “Tyron Reith is big in the city, fingers in many pies, the main one being a pharmaceutical laboratory. It appears legit on the outside, like they’re concocting a cure for cancer or something, but… There’s this charity for the homeless thing where people are taken off the streets and supposedly given a new life. The strange thing is, you never see them after that. Not that anyone cares. They’re expendable, aren’t they? The homeless?”
I wondered if she would pause for breath, but she didn’t.
“Rumour has it, down at the station, that the people are used as human guinea pigs and their bodies secretly disposed of. Not that we can prove anything. There’ve been a couple of incidents here, too.”
“Really? Like what?” I asked.
“Well, a couple of years ago, one of Vincent’s employees was found floating in the river. The official line was that the guy had been depressed for months and did himself in, but the coroner recorded a suspicious death. And then last year, Vincent was seeing Rachel, a barmaid here, until she developed a mysterious illness and suddenly died.” She turned and looked directly at me. “Look, it’s just a friendly warning. You seem like a nice girl, but nice girls are always the ones who get hurt, aren’t they?”
“It’s fine. I couldn’t care less if I never see him again. He creeps me out.” I cringed.
“Anyone I know? I do have a way of dealing with unwanted admirers, if you’re in need,” a smarmy voice sounded behind me.
I turned and looked up at Vincent. “Um…no. No need. I can look after myself. Thanks anyway.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” The teeth made another appearance before he asked, “Would you ladies like another drink?”
“No, um, thank you. You’ve been more than generous, and we’re getting ready to leave.”
“So soon? Pity. I do hope you…and your friends,” he added almost as an afterthought, “will visit us again soon.” He took hold of my hand and lifted it to his cold lips.
It was like being kissed by a dead fish. I suppressed a shudder.
The following morning, Beth was already up when I entered the kitchen.
“Toast?” she asked, waving her already buttered slice in the air.
“It’s okay, thanks. I’ll sort myself out.”
“Oh, I wasn’t offering, just wondering whether to leave the bread out.”
“Funny.”
“I try.” She picked up her plate and jo
ined me on the sofa. “So, did you have fun last night? I’m surprised you didn’t talk to lover boy,” she added casually.
“Who?”
“Sebastian. Who did you think I meant?”
“Was he there? I didn’t notice,” I replied quite truthfully, but with a sense of disappointment that I’d missed him.
“Well, he was standing at the end of the bar with his cousin when you were getting the drinks in, and I have to say, if looks could burn, you and Vincent would be a pile of ashes right now.”
“Oh, don’t be silly. He can’t have been looking at me. I must have been standing next to a pretty girl or something.”
Beth placed her plate on the floor and looked up at me. “You know, you don’t give yourself enough credit. You have something that boys find appealing. They look at you all the time. You might not notice it, but I do because I’m usually looking at them while they’re doing it. Sebastian was definitely watching you right up until Vincent came to our table, and then he left, just before we did.”
Her words washed over me, and I didn’t really take them in. An alien sensation grew in my stomach and my pulse raced as I deliberated over whether I was developing feelings for Sebastian. I couldn’t be. I hadn’t even seen him up close yet, let alone spoken to him, and besides, I didn’t need the complication of a boyfriend in my life.
After breakfast, Beth left for her taekwondo class, so I packed my painting gear in a rucksack and set off walking, excited about returning to the picturesque pond.
Devoid of students for the weekend, the campus was strangely silent. My skin prickled as I crossed the grounds, and I imagined shadows moving behind the darkened windows. Quickening my pace, I hurried to the boundary, and before long I was retracing my steps along the winding route to the pond.
I spent a lazy few hours there recording the view from different angles—first sketching the scene, and then finishing with a light wash of colour—and after laying my efforts down to dry in the sun, I leant back against an old tree stump to eat my well-earned chicken sandwich.
After a while, the sandy colour appeared through the trees and caught my eye again. So, sandwich finished and paints safely stored, I set off towards the hill.
The ground sloped gently upwards at first, but soon grew steeper, and I was quite out of breath by the time I neared the trees, but it was worth the climb.
A huge old house was nestled in the arms of another tier of hills. To my left, a long gravelled driveway snaked its way through a line of trees and opened out at the front of an impressive set of stone steps leading up to the main entrance. Everywhere looked spookily deserted as I crossed over what would once have been a huge area of landscaped lawn, now left unloved and overgrown. There were no signs of life in the house, and the nearer I crept, the more I became convinced that the property had long since been abandoned.
I rounded the corner towards the rear of the building. On my right, set slightly back from the end of the house, was a vast expanse of high wall, broken only by an arched wooden gate. I peeped through the rusty keyhole and discovered an enclosed but open-air swimming pool, empty of water and covered with shrivelled green slime. It was surrounded by mildewed statues, and I could just about make out a row of dirty stained-glass windows on the house’s inner wall. Behind the building, the rear garden felt almost creepy. Dry mounds of soil with dead twigs protruding pointlessly up through a blanket of crusty leaves were the only evidence of the beauty it had once held.
Exploring further, I encountered two dilapidated greenhouses. Both of them had dirty broken panes and were filled with dried-up and decaying plants on dusty shelves. Sad little shoots in tiny pots lay in rows on a rickety workbench, never to grow and blossom.
Directly behind a nearby row of trees, a descending mist made it impossible to see further into the distance. I could only imagine what lay beyond.
I was lost in thought, picturing the old house’s glorious past, when a gust of wind blew an old carrier bag across the scene, and a chill ran through me. Realising I really shouldn’t be there, I nervously returned to the front of the house.
My prickles returned, and I had a feeling I was being watched, so I started to run over the grounds, through the trees, down the hill, past the pond, along the river, and all the way home. I had never run so quickly, or for so long, before, but I didn’t stop, and I didn’t feel safe, until I closed the flat’s door behind me and leaned against it, breathless.
“Sophie? What the hell? You look like shit,” Beth exclaimed.
“I-I’m fine. Just getting a bit of exercise,” I panted, glancing between her and Justin, who was in the seating area reading the Daily News.
He looked up and immediately discarded the paper, then hurried over to guide me towards the sofa. “Exercise, my ass. Beth said you’d gone for a relaxing arty-farty morning. What happened?”
My breathing eased a little as I relaxed. “I did. Honestly. I did some great work. It’s in my bag if you don’t believe me.” I took a deep breath. “And…then I went for a walk.”
“Where?” they questioned in unison.
“Just up to the hills, near Lyall Ridge.”
“And?” They were beginning to sound like a double act.
“And nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “I came across an old house. A mist descended. I got spooked and came home. End of story.”
Justin seemed curious. “Um, just how big a house are we talking?”
“Quite big,” I said, wondering why he was asking.
“Hmm. I should have known. An old house near Lyall Ridge could only be Lovell Towers. No wonder you were spooked.”
“Lovell Towers? As in Sebastian Lovell?” God, why did my stomach always knot up at the thought of him?
“The very same.” He studied my face for a reaction.
“Oh, this just got interesting,” Beth said as she handed me a glass of wine and then curled up on the nearby chair, clutching her own.
Justin shrugged. “There’s not much to tell anymore. For centuries, the Lovells were big in the gold mining industry. That’s why they’re so rich.”
His statement sparked Beth’s interest. “Rich? Just how rich are we talking?” she interrupted, and I could almost see the cogs starting to turn in her mind.
“Oh, millions,” Justin continued. “Anyway, Sebastian’s great-great-great-great—well, however many greats—grandfather had Lovell Towers built next to the mine entrance to be near the hub of things, and generation after generation of Lovells lived there until the accident when Sebastian’s father was a boy. He now works as a jeweller in the city.”
I took a sip of wine, and my nerves calmed a little. “What accident?”
“A tunnel collapsed. Many men were buried alive. Nasty business. Sebastian’s grandfather never forgave himself, and he jumped off a Lovell Towers parapet.”
“Oh, how awful. But his grandmother… You said the boys had convalesced with their grandmother.” I glanced over at Beth, and she shrugged her shoulders in a don’t ask me way.
“Shouldn’t think she lives there,” Justin said. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to. She probably lives in one of the old miners’ cottages on the edge of town,” he speculated, studying his watch. “Ooo, I must go. Mummy’s making lasagne for tea. Can’t miss that.”
He picked up his jacket and threw it over his arm as he left.