Short Shockers: Collection Two

  Meg felt her face redden. ‘Well, not exactly, no. I – ’ She watched the woman’s face closely, feeling a deepening sense of unease as she peered even more intently at the portrait.

  ‘That’s Alwyn!’ she declared. ‘Alwyn Hughes! You painted this? You really painted this?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘The likeness is incredible. I mean it, incredible. It’s her!’

  ‘Alwyn Hughes?’

  ‘You must have copied this from something? A photograph perhaps?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not with you.’

  ‘She used to live here!’

  Meg felt the goosebumps rising up her back. ‘When . . . when was that?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I don’t. Please tell me.’

  The two women sat down opposite each other on the sofas. Jenny looked at her strangely, then back at the portrait again. ‘You didn’t hear the story? The estate agent didn’t tell you?’

  ‘The estate agent told us the previous owners had only been here a short while. Shortly after they moved in, the husband was offered a very lucrative contract for a five-year posting in Abu Dhabi. My husband, Paul, who’s an accountant, explained to me that if you want to go into tax exile, you cannot own a home in the UK – so I understand that is the reason why they had to sell the house.’

  Jenny Marples nodded. ‘That would make sense. They were such a nice couple; they fitted so nicely into the neighbourhood. We were all sorry when they left so suddenly.’ She sipped her tea, then glanced at her watch.

  ‘What didn’t the agent tell us?’ Meg asked.

  ‘It was really so sad, so sad. Alwyn and her husband moved here around the same time that my husband, Clive, and I did. She loved this house so much – well, you know,’ she said, tapping her nose in a conspiratorial way, ‘this is rather an exclusive area. A lot of people dream of living in Hove 4. It was a bit of a financial stretch for them, but her husband had a job with good prospects, she told me, and although they had mortgaged up to the hilt, their children had grown up and were off their hands, so she hoped that within a few years their financial situation would improve considerably. But they had the most terrible luck.’

  She sipped more tea, and fell silent for some moments.

  ‘What was that?’ Meg prompted, shooting a glance at the portrait.

  ‘Well, she told me they’d been up to Yorkshire to spend Easter weekend with her husband’s parents, in Harrogate. On their way back down the M1 they’d been involved in one of those horrific multiple-vehicle motorway pile-ups. They were rear-ended by a lorry and shunted into a car in front. Her husband was killed instantly, and she was trapped in the car by her legs. They had to amputate one of them, her right leg, to free her.’

  Meg felt as if she had been dunked in an ice bath. She recalled, so vividly, the woman she had seen in the mirror, standing behind her on one leg. Her left. Goosebumps crawled over every inch of her skin. ‘Poor woman,’ she said. ‘Poor, poor woman.’

  ‘Terrible.’

  Jenny drained her tea. Meg offered her another cup, but the woman looked at her watch anxiously. ‘I have to be going,’ she said. ‘I have a charity fundraising committee meeting.’

  ‘What else can you tell me about Alwyn Hughes?’

  She saw Jenny glance at the portrait, as if it was making her increasingly uncomfortable. ‘Well, the thing is – the thing that is so sad – is that she loved this house so much. But she had no sympathy from the mortgage company, nor their bank. Her husband hadn’t got any life insurance – well, he had, but he’d stopped payments apparently some months before because things weren’t going too well at work for him. She did her best to try to get a job, to earn enough to keep up with the mortgage payments, but who wants a middle-aged woman with one leg? The building society were in the process of foreclosing. She should have let them – they had some equity in the house, and she could have bought a little flat with it – but, poor thing, she couldn’t see through that. So she hung herself in their bedroom.’

  *

  The story is best told from Francis Wells’ perspective from now on.

  I was approached by the Reverend Michael Carsey, a vicar of the Church of the Good Shepherd, and parish priest for the area of Hove 4 in the city of Brighton and Hove. He had been contacted by two of his parishioners, Paul and Meg Ryerson, with a story that he found convincing, but was uncertain how to deal with the situation. He suggested I should talk to them myself.

  I visited their very pleasant house, and found them to be very down-to-earth people, both from Anglican backgrounds, but lapsed. The wife, Meg, was more of a believer than her husband, Paul – but that’s not to say he was a sceptic; in my view he was more of an agnostic.

  I listened to their story, about the apparition of the one-legged woman, and the subsequent verification of her identity from a neighbour. I studied the portrait myself and compared it to photographs I was subsequently able to obtain of the deceased, Alwyn Hughes, and there was little doubt, in my own mind, that the two were the same person.

  I decided that, perhaps owing to the manner of her death – suicide – the spirit of Alwyn Hughes was earthbound, which in layman’s terms means that the spirit was unaware the body was gone and was manifesting in familiar territory in an attempt to find it.

  Whilst nothing of a specifically malevolent nature was occurring, the sightings of Alwyn Hughes were clearly deeply distressing to both Paul and Meg Ryerson, and affecting their quality of life. After interviewing them in depth I became further convinced that they genuinely believed what they had seen.

  Neither of them had suffered any bereavement of a family member or friend within the past two years, and they were both, in my opinion, of sound mind, intelligent and rational people.

  The tragic story they told me of the past occupants of their property checked out, with the death of Mrs Alwyn Hughes registered, following the inquest and the Coroner’s verdict, as suicide whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed.

  I decided that the appropriate, if exceptional, action to be taken in the first instance should be a requiem mass, held in the room in the home where the sightings of the apparition had taken place.

  On 3 June, I attended the Ryersons’ home, accompanied by a young curate, an extremely rational young man who had begun his career as an engineer and who, I knew from many conversations with him, had a problem, as I did myself at that time, with the conventional image of the Biblical God. So, if you like, we were two sceptics turning up to help two equally sceptical, but very scared and confused people. However, I had decided on a highly conventional approach. We were to hold a full requiem mass, essentially a full, high-Anglican funeral service, in an attempt to lay the unrested spirit to rest.

  We set out on a table all the requisites for a full communion, and began the service, with Paul and Meg Ryerson standing in front of us. Part of the way through, as I had broken the bread and given them both the host and was about to offer the communion wine, suddenly each of them went sheet white and I saw them staring past me at something.

  I turned around, and to my utter astonishment I saw a woman standing on one leg, on crutches, right behind me. She gave me a quizzical smile, as if uncertain what to do.

  Totally spontaneously, I said to her, ‘You can go now.’

  She smiled at me. Then, as if in a movie, she slowly dissolved, until she had vanished completely. I turned back around to face the Ryersons.

  ‘Incredible!’ Meg said.

  ‘That is unbelievable!’ her husband said.

  ‘What did you both see?’ I asked them.

  Each of them, fighting to get it out first, described exactly what I had seen.

  I was invited to their home, for a very boozy dinner, a year later. It looked, and felt, like a totally different house. It wasn’t just the complete décor makeover it had had. It was imbued with a positive energy that had been totally lacking, or suppressed, previously.

  I often think back to that
night I saw the one-legged lady, Alwyn Hughes. Had she been a product of my imagination? I think not. But if not, then what, in this rational world of ours, had I seen? A ghost?

  Yes, I truly think so.

  TIMING IS EVERYTHING

  It was finally Tuesday. Tuesdays were always a special day of the week for Larry Goodman, and this one seemed to have taken an extra-long time to arrive. He was excited, like a big kid, his tummy full of butterflies. Not long now! He shaved more closely than normal, applied an extra amount of his Bulgari cologne that the lady of his life particularly liked, dressed carefully, and ate a quick breakfast.

  At 7 a.m. he kissed his wife goodbye. Elaine, who was breastfeeding their baby son, Max. She told him to have a great day at the office. He assured her he would, and left their swanky Staten Island home with a broad smile on his face. It was a beautiful, warm, cloudless morning, which made his mood even better, if that was possible. Oh yes, he would have a great day all right – well, a great morning at any rate!

  Forty minutes later he alighted from the ferry onto Manhattan, took the subway up to 57th street, and walked the short distance to the midtown Holiday Inn. His secretary would cover for him, as she did every Tuesday and Friday morning at this same time, telling anyone who was looking for him that he had a breakfast meeting out with a client.

  Bang on cue, his cell pinged with a text, just as he entered the foyer.

  2130 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

  He cast a nervous eye around, but all he saw was a cluster of Japanese tourists, a group of elderly ladies, and a young couple standing at the front desk wearing huge backpacks. This was not a place where players from Wall Street hung out, nor high-powered attorneys.

  He texted back:

  Get naked xxxxxxxx

  He rode the elevator up towards the twenty-first floor, feeling horny – and happy – as hell. Another text pinged:

  I am. Hurry or I’ll have to start without you xxxxxxxxxxx

  He grinned. Marcie had the dirtiest mind he’d ever known. And the most stunning body. And the most beautiful face. And the silkiest long, wavy, flaxen hair. And she smelled amazing.

  They always met here, in this anonymous barn of a hotel where neither of them was likely to bump into anyone they knew. Marcie didn’t have to lie to her husband about where she was; he was so wrapped up in himself these days, she had told Larry, that he rarely bothered to ask her how her day had been, and even less what she had done.

  But with Elaine it was different. Elaine quizzed Larry about every detail of every day, and all the more so since she was now home alone with just Max to occupy her. She called him every few hours, asking him where he was, how his meetings were going, telling him about Max – who had recently started to crawl. Luckily, Erin, his secretary, was a rock.

  He was paranoid about divorce. He’d already been through one, brought about by his affair with Elaine, four years back, and it had almost wiped him out financially. He needed to be careful with Elaine, who did not suffer fools gladly and was no fool herself. She was a high-powered divorce lawyer, known affectionately by her colleagues as ‘Gripper’, owing to her legendary reputation for never letting go of any of her clients’ husbands until their balls had been squeezed dry.

  Elaine was bored witless being home alone. But not for much longer – she was going back to work as soon as possible. He relished that happening, because then the incessant calls from her would stop. That was the one problem with their relationship having started as an affair – she was permanently suspicious of him, and never more so than now she had time on her hands to think, and fret.

  The elevator doors opened and he stepped out, taking a moment to orient himself with the direction arrows for the room numbers. He popped the chewing gum out of his mouth, balled it into a tissue and stuck it in his pocket as he strode down the corridor towards room 2130. Then, his heart pounding with excitement, he stopped outside the door and savoured, for an instant, this delicious moment of anticipation. He could hear music pounding on the other side. Marcie was big into music; she always brought her iPod and two powerful little portable speakers. ‘Love Is All Around’ by Wet, Wet, Wet was playing, the song which had become his and Marcie’s song – corny but potent for them both.

  He knocked.

  The door opened almost instantly, and he gasped.

  ‘You lied!’ he said.

  She had.

  She wasn’t naked at all. Not totally, anyhow. She was wearing black suspenders. And a silver necklace, which he had given her. But nothing else.

  Kicking the door shut behind him, he fell to his knees, wrapped his arms around her bare midriff and buried his face into her stomach, then instantly began to explore her with his tongue.

  She gasped. He breathed in her scents, the one she had sprayed on, and the natural scents of her body. ‘Oh my God, Marcie!’

  ‘Larry!’

  She dug her hands so hard into his shoulders he was scared, for an instant, that her nails were going to score his skin. He didn’t want to have to try to explain scratch marks to Elaine, and that was one of Marcie’s dangers – she could be a bit too wild at times.

  Then, as he stood, she tore at his clothes like a wild animal, her lips pressed to his, their tongues flailing, her deliciously cold hands slipping inside his boxers.

  She pulled her head back a fraction, grinning, her hands moving around inside his pants. ‘Someone’s pleased to see me!’

  ‘Someone sure is! Someone’s been missing you like crazy all weekend.’

  They stumbled across the small room, his trousers around his ankles, and fell, entwined, onto the bed.

  ‘God, I had such a shit weekend. I’ve missed you so much. I’ve been dreaming of this, wanting you so badly,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been wanting you so badly too, babe.’

  ‘Take me from behind.’

  He took her from behind. Turned her over and took her again from the front. Then he slid down the bed, down between her slender legs, and pressed his tongue deep inside her. Then she sat on top of him.

  Finally, sated, they lay in the soft bed in each other’s arms. ‘You’re amazing,’ she said.

  ‘You are too.’

  Van Morrison was singing ‘Days Like This’, and Larry was thinking, Yes, this is life. Days like this are truly living life!

  ‘You’re the best lover ever,’ she said.

  ‘Funny, I was thinking the same about you!’

  ‘You’ve done this before, haven’t you?’ Marcie teased.

  ‘Nah – just read about it in a magazine.’

  She grinned. ‘So how was your weekend?’

  ‘Great,’ he said. ‘Max vomited over me. Twice.’

  ‘Sweet.’ She traced a finger across his forehead. ‘But you love him?’

  ‘I do. It’s an amazing feeling to be a father.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re a great father.’

  ‘I want to be,’ he murmured. He glanced at his watch. Time flew when they were together. It had been 8 a.m. only a few moments ago, it seemed. He had a board meeting scheduled for 11.30 a.m. Just a few more minutes, then he’d have to jump in the shower, dress, take the subway back downtown to the reality of his job as a hedge fund manager. And not see Marcie again until Friday.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ she said. ‘Lot of sirens outside.’

  But he barely registered what she was saying – he was thinking for a moment about a tricky client meeting he was due to have this afternoon. A major client who was threatening to move a large amount of money to a rival firm.

  His meetings with Marcie were affecting his work, he knew. Ordinarily he’d be at his desk by 7.30 a.m., and would begin his day by updating himself on all the overnight changes to the market positions of his clients, then scan the morning’s reports from the analysts. Recently, two days a week, he had been neglecting his work – and that was why he now had one very pissed-off client.

  He listened some more to Van Morrison, savouring these las
t moments with Marcie and feeling too relaxed to care. He heard another siren outside. Then another.

  Suddenly, his cell rang.

  He rolled over and looked at the display. ‘Shit’, he said. It was Elaine. He pressed the decline call button.

  Moments later, it rang again.

  He declined the call again.

  It rang a third time.

  He put a finger to his lips. ‘It’s her,’ he said. ‘Third time. I’d better answer in case there’s a problem.’

  She rolled over and silenced the music. And now, outside, they could hear a whole cacophony of sirens.

  ‘Hi darling,’ he said into the phone. ‘Everything OK?’

  Elaine sounded panic-stricken. ‘Larry! Oh my God, Larry, are you OK?’

  ‘Sure! Fine! Never better – why?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in the office – just about to go into a board meeting.’

  ‘In the office?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘You’re in the office?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m in the office, hon.’

  There was a long silence. Then she said, her voice almost a shriek, ‘You’re in your office?’

  ‘Yeah, I am. What’s the problem? What’s going on? Is everything OK? Is Max OK?’

  ‘You haven’t been hit on the head?’

  ‘Hit on the head?’

  ‘You’re in your office?’

  ‘Yes, shit, I’m in my office!’

  ‘What can you see?’

  ‘What can I see?’

  ‘Tell me what you can see out of your fucking window?’ she demanded.

  ‘I see beautiful blue sky. The East River. I—’

  ‘You goddamn liar!’ The phone went dead.

  Marcie, rolling over, said, ‘What’s with all the sirens?’ She picked the television remote up from her bedside table, and pressed a button on it. The television came alive. She clicked through to a news channel. A panicky looking female news reporter, holding a microphone in her hand, was standing with her back to the building Larry recognized instantly. It was where he worked. Up on the eighty-seventh floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center.