“I know you spent a lot of time together over the last few weeks of his life, but did he open up to you?”
“You’ll have to be more specific.” Marc put down the remains of his sandwich and waited.
“Okay, let me ask you a question. How did you meet Harry? What brought you here, to him?”
Marc leaned back in his chair. He glanced at the window. The sunlight had dimmed; the patch of visible sky outside was flat and inexpressive. “My uncle used to know Harry, years ago. Uncle Mike died of a brain tumour while I was still at Uni. It was sudden. I’d always had a lot of time for the guy — he raised me when my parents died. He wasn’t a real uncle… he was, well, just a friend of the family, I suppose. It seemed natural for him to look after me when my folks died.” He paused, looked again at the window. It was slightly brighter: a rectangle of pasty light. Said out loud, his life story seemed strange, as if it was a fiction. The edges didn’t quite fit together; there were gaps that he could not fill.
“So you already knew about Harry? You were aware of him?”
“Yes, I was. The reason I’m writing this book about the Northumberland Poltergeist case is because Uncle Mike used to talk about it all the time. He was kind of obsessed with what went on in the Needle all those years ago. I think he worked here, on the estate, and he knew a few of the people involved — maybe even the kids, the Pollack twins.”
Rose nodded. “Yes. That sounds about right.”
“You knew my uncle, too?”
Rose shook his head. “Not really. Even then, I’d cut my ties with this place. But me and Harry were still speaking back then. I used to come and visit him, and there were always all kinds of people in this house. He knew everyone. He loved to talk and to socialise. Christ, sometimes I wonder if we even came from the same stock.” He laughed softly, but it was a strained sound, as if he had to coax it from his throat. “I think your uncle was one of the blokes Harry used to drink with. I remember a Mike — big guy, with masses of curly black hair?”
“Yes,” said Marc. “That was him. People used to call him Stavros, after the sidekick from
“God, yes… now I definitely remember him.” He shook his head.
There was another period of silence, but this one didn’t last for long.
“Harry was a strange man. He collected information in the same way that other people like to collect stamps or books or little pottery figurines. He liked urban myths and tall tales. He collected other people’s stories and kept them inside his head. I’m sure one day he intended to write a book of some kind, but never got around to it. But the older he got, the more withdrawn he became. Then he simply stopped being so sociable, as if he had too many stories in his head and there wasn’t room for any more.”
Marc smiled, remembering the way Harry Rose’s face used to light up whenever he talked about things that had gone on in the area.
“He also collected… other things.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was something of a kleptomaniac, my brother. He liked to take things that weren’t his. Like a magpie drawn to shiny objects, he couldn’t resist nabbing something that might have a story attached to it.”
“I see.”
“He kept a lot of this stuff in the attic rooms. Did he ever show you those rooms?” Rose glanced upwards, at the ceiling.
“No,” said Marc. “He never even mentioned them.”
“Okay.” Rose stood, pushing out his chair, and crossed to the window. He stared out of it for a moment, and then turned back to face the room again. “So I went up there to see what he might be keeping. I thought that I might be able to return some stuff to its rightful owners, if there was anything valuable, or maybe even sell it.” He paused, looked down at the floor, and then back up again, at Marc. “He’d got rid of most of it, emptied out the rooms. To make space.”
“Space?” Marc stretched his neck. It was aching. He must have slept in a bad position at Abby’s place. “Space for what?”
Rose walked across the kitchen, approached the table, but did not sit back down. “I think it’s best if I show you.” His jacket was hanging on the back of the chair. He reached into the inside pocket and brought out a folded A4-size manila envelope. “But first let me give you this.”
Marc reached out and took the envelope. His name was written on the front. He recognised Harry’s handwriting.
“I found it in his bedroom, on the bedside cabinet. He must have left it for you to find.” He remained standing, watching Marc as he examined the envelope.
“Thanks,” said Marc. He tore open the envelope and took out what was inside: a photocopied sheet of paper, folded down the middle. He straightened out the sheet of paper and saw that it was a copy of a brief extract from somebody’s diary.
I think somebody hates us. he is in the house all the time but we cant see him. he makes niose when nowbody else is here. he wants to hurt us. we hide under the bed when mummy and daddy are in the pub. he canit see us there. we inibible. inbisevil. he canit see us. but he is there. in the walls and under the floor. he creeps about and peeps threw the gaps to try and see me and daisy flower. I am scared. I can here him now. he goes clikcety clikcety like when I spilt my marbels on the kichen floor. clikcey clikcety clikc.
He read it through twice, understanding dawning upon him long before he’d finished rereading the words. “It’s Jack Pollack… the little boy. It’s the boy who lived in the Needle and was haunted by the Northumberland Poltergeist. He wrote this, didn’t he?”
Rose did not respond. He just stood there, watching.
Marc grabbed the envelope again and peered inside. He’d missed something in his haste: a second sheet of paper, this one an original rather than a photocopy.
He gripped the sheet of paper by the edges with both hands, as if he were afraid it might burn or blow away. Upon it was drawn the crude representation of a figure. It looked like a man, but could also have been a woman. It was difficult to assign a gender because the figure was wearing a long, black cape that smothered its body and a white, beaked mask over its face. In its hand was raised a short, thin stick or wand with a pointed end.
This was obviously a child’s drawing. The lines were jagged, the shading went outside the lines, and the overall effect was that of crudity, juvenile artlessness… and yet, the drawing held an element of horror that Marc found difficult to ignore. The face was coloured with white crayon, the cape shaded in broad, angry strokes of a thick, black pencil.
Underneath this character was written its name, in the same clumsy, misspelled handwriting as he’d read in the diary extract:
captain clikcety
“He never told me he had anything like this.” He looked up, at Rose, and the room pitched to one side, causing him to shudder. He felt like a man on a little boat, yearning for the shore.
“Maybe he didn’t have it then. He might have got hold of this stuff just before he died, and not had time to show it to you.”
“I saw him in hospital several times before he died. We talked about a lot of things — my book included, to keep his mind off his pain. He would’ve said. He would’ve told me. I’m sure of it.”
“Then I don’t know why he didn’t. Come on. Let me show you what else I found.”
Rose waited for Marc to rise and then walked out of the room, to the stairs. He paused at the bottom, resting one hand on the wall-mounted wooden banister, and then began to climb.
Marc followed him up to the first floor, noting the sound of the stairs as they creaked beneath their weight. They walked along the landing to the second stairway at the opposite end — one that had been added after the house was built, when the attic space was converted into habitable rooms.
Rose took out a set of keys and selected one of them. He unlocked the sturdy wooden door that sealed the stairway, and pushed it open. He reached inside and flicked a switch. The light came on up the stairs; a single bulb hanging from the ceiling at the top.
