away behind the false wall in the closet? he wondered. She hadn't been able to describe the intruder because he was in shadow, the light coming from behind. It must have been imagined! Or dreamt! It was this goddamn house. There was something peculiar going on inside Crickley Hall, something that caused hallucinations. Some houses had personalities, didn't they? That's what some people believed and maybe they were right. A house that fucked with the mind. Eve had been affected by it, become a little weird, wanting to stay whereas before she couldn't wait to get out of there. Now Loren had been touched by it. And Cally. Could they have been sunspots he'd seen floating round her yesterday? Or something else, something unreal?
They had to leave, find a different place to rent. It would take a day or two to arrange—no, it would take at least a week, probably more—to organize. But he'd get on with it. They were moving out.
Gabe switched on ignition, shifted into gear, and three-point-turned the Range Rover so that it was pointing uphill. They headed for Merrybridge.
36: INTRUDERS
The sister and brother with the impossibly ambitious names tramped along the road. Although the sun shone brightly enough, the air was damp and their anoraks, one blue, the other red, were zipped up to their chins.
A green van passed them heading uphill, as were they, the driver giving a short blast of the horn as he went by. Neither the girl nor the boy bothered to wave back.
'You sure?' Seraphina asked of Quentin.
Her swollen nose was a different colour to the rest of her podgy face: red and sore-looking, its yellowish bridge merging with the purple-yellow at the inner corners of her deepset eyes.
Quentin, tall and stocky, looked back at her—his sister had a hard job keeping up with him on the steep road. 'Course I'm sure. I saw them driving off when I was doing my
His hardworking mother, besides cleaning other people's homes for a living, kept a chicken hutch in their backyard. It was her son's job to collect eggs in the morning before school (from which he was temporarily suspended) and deliver them to various customers in the area. Fresh eggs for breakfast brought a good price and Trisha Blaney needed the extra money. Cleaning did not pay particularly well, despite all the hours she put in with her friend and neighbour Megan, and since Trisha's husband Roy had walked out on her and the kids six years ago, any money she did earn was already spent. Not that her estranged husband had ever done much to bring home the bread when he was around. Idle and dim-witted he was—their son Quentin was of the same mould, had to be pushed into doing anything—and if truth be told, she had been glad to see the back of him.
Seraphina, not being one for climbing, nor even for walking far, puffed and wheezed as she straggled behind.
'Yeah, but you sure they won't come back?' she said to her brother.
Quentin slowed his pace to let her catch up. He was used to the hill road because of his morning rounds. 'Won't take a minute to leave it on the doorstep.' He held up the plastic bin-liner he carried, something heavy bulging at the bottom of it, and waggled it in the air. 'Be a nice surprise for 'em.'
Seraphina drew level with him. 'No,' she said breathlessly. 'I don't wanta leave this one outside like the pigeon. This present is going inside the house. Right into her bed.'
'Don't be daft, you can't do that. What if they catch us?'
'Look, I got the key from Mum's drawer so we could do it. I'm not gonna waste the chance.'
'She'll go demented if she finds out.'
'Mum only cleans the place once a month. She don't need the key for a coupla weeks yet. She won't notice it's gone.'
'I dunno, Seph. It's dodgy.'
'Don't be such a minger. We'll be in and out, no problem.'
'You don't know where her bedroom is.'
'We'll easy find it. She'll have Barbie Dolls and things, little girly stuff.'
'You only wanta get your own back, just 'cause she punched your lights out.'
'Shut up, Quenty. You weren't there, you don't know what happened. I wasn't looking and I fell over.'
'She decked you, you mean. Anyway, it got you a few days off school.'
'I weren't going in and letting everybody see what she done.'
'You're lucky Mum's so soft on you. She'da packed me off to school all right if I come home with a busted snout'
'It ain't busted.'
'Good as.'
'No it's not. It's just swelled up a bit.'
'And red. Like one of them baboon's bottoms.'
'Shut up or I'll make you go into the house on your own.'
Quentin stayed silent. His younger sister could bully him because she was a lot smarter. And she knew things about him that she could tell. Mum wouldn't like him stealing. Or smoking. Or throwing stones through windows when no one else was around. A lot of the time, Sephy put him up to it—she was always winding him up—but Mum wouldn't believe that Sephy could be cruel; much better to do what she said and keep her sweet.
'Let me have another look at it,' his sister called out as she lagged behind again.
'What for?'
''Cause I like looking at it. She won't, though. She'll throw a hissy fit. She'll go to bed tonight, all nice and innocent like, and she'll pull back the blankets and she'll see a bloody great rat lying there. Wish I could be around to see it!'
Seraphina gave a little snigger, an unpleasant sound. Her brother joined in and ran a hand through his spiky hair.
'Why don't you shove it right down in the bed so she don't see it at first? She'd jump in, put her feet down and feel something furry and sticky.'
The stickiness would be the rat's blood. He had cornered it in the chicken hutch, where it was after the feed, and Quentin had thrown the loose brick at it, the brick that helped keep the wire door shut. It had stunned the rat, stopped it getting away, and he had bashed it until it squealed like a baby, and then was dead.
He held the top of the bin-liner for his sister, and she peered in. Like Quentin, she also enjoyed seeing the blood.
'It stinks!' she complained.
'Yeah, it's a rat,' said Quentin drily.
Seraphina raised her head and smirked. 'Fancy-knickers is gonna wet herself.'
Her brother smirked back.
They resumed walking, and though the exercise puffed her out, Seraphina could not stop smiling.
Soon they reached the bridge leading across the river to their destination.
Crickley Hall.
•
Seraphina didn't like the way the water tumbled over itself to reach the bay. It frothed with impatience.
At least the rain had stopped. Mum said a lot of local folk were anxious about the rainfall lately. It might bring another flood like the big one sixty-odd years ago, some said. The big flood of '43 was a major part of Hollow Bay history and there were even a few in the village who remembered it first-hand. If the high moors could not soak up all the extra rain, then a tragedy might well happen again. That's what some predicted, but Mum had told her it would never be like last time. Higher bridges had been built to prevent blockages, and the river had been widened where it entered the bay, so don't you worry, my pet, the village could never be flooded like before. That's what Mum told her, and Seraphina believed her. Still, she was glad it had stopped raining today.
She stared across the river at the horrible old building. Who would want to live in a house like that? She felt spooked just looking at it. So did Quentin.
'Let's just leave the rat on the doorstep. Like the bird,' he whined.
Seraphina scowled at him. 'I already told you, it's going in her bed.'
'I don't like this place. It gives me the creeps. What if we put it in the kitchen? That wouldn't take a sec, and
