The Forgotten Room: a gripping, chilling thriller that will have you hooked

The pocket of time since the bulb had blown seemed inordinate. It was as though she had fallen into a dark rabbit hole and was still falling. The dog was too quiet. Everything was too quiet for senses that were notching up to high alert with every slow, extended heartbeat. The part of her brain that had somehow remained free of terror tried to tell her it had been seconds, not minutes, and that she could speak and move if she wanted to.

The other part, the big, weak, human part, just wanted to stand there for ever while she metaphorically shat herself.

Buster was having none of it, however. He’d been on the promise of something tasty in that kitchen and so far nothing had been forthcoming. With a needy whine he nudged at her hand with his cold nose, jolting her out of her panic by increasing it, and making her lurch to the side with shock while she emitted a guttural grunt of terror.

It dawned on her that Buster wasn’t scared. He wasn’t growling or barking or trying to raise the alarm in any way. It was just a bulb that had tripped the circuit. She tried laughing at herself. It was just a blown bulb and if it hadn’t shattered she would be fine. ‘Get a grip, Maura,’ she said out loud, projecting her voice into the darkness and willing it to drive the shadows away. It was just a blown bulb. No one was inside – they couldn’t be. The house was secure even if Maura’s equilibrium wasn’t.

The only response from the darkness was the sound of Buster panting. She could have sworn the house was having a laugh at her expense. She felt as though the whole place was smirking at her, revelling in the little surprises it was throwing her way. ‘It’s a house, it does not possess sentience,’ she said to Buster, who wagged his tail. ‘So, my little fur buddy, what do we do? Call your master or tackle this ourselves and prove we’re not wimps?’

Though the passage was pitch-black, the kitchen was not. Watery moonlight was washing the room with thin light and shadows. Maura knew Cheryl kept a torch underneath the sink, and she also knew the electricity consumer unit was situated at the bottom of the stairs in the cellar. Although she hadn’t been down there, Cheryl had thrown the door open on her tour and had mentioned they sometimes had problems with the electrics and that the “fuses” were down there… Fuses. Maura hadn’t seen an old-fashioned fuse box in years but was pretty confident she could change one if someone had had the foresight to leave the right materials.

Wandering about the cellars of this creepy, half-arsed house in the dead of night was not her idea of fun. The simple solution would have been to phone Bob, but she had already disturbed him the previous night and, besides, she wanted to show the house it couldn’t beat her, ridiculous though the thought was. With Buster at her heels, she took a breath, went for the torch and followed its beam to the cellar door.

Cheryl kept the cellar locked, just in case Gordon went for a wander. The key was on a hook near the top of the architrave. It was a heavy old key and the lock was stiff but it gave in to Maura’s efforts and allowed her to open the door. The cellar greeted her with a waft of stale air that held the tang of mould; it was clear that damp and decay had taken hold down in the bowels of the house. It wasn’t surprising – everything about the place seemed to be on its last legs. The place was like a spiteful old man, glorying in self-neglect and festering with discontent. Much like its owner now she came to think about it.

Buster was not perturbed by this new adventure at all and bolted down the stairs full of enthusiasm for this new space and its new sensations. ‘Buster!’ Maura hissed, wondering why she was being quiet when she knew damned well it would take a full-frontal attack by mortar shell to rouse Gordon from his drugged slumber. The dog was gone. He had gleefully disappeared into the rambling tunnels and rooms of the cellar, exploring nooks and crannies the torch beam only hinted at.

‘Shit!’ Maura said as she reached the bottom and searched for him with her ribbon of light. Scanning up she could see that the cellar was lit, but only when the circuit was working. Buster would either come back of his own accord, or she could search for him with the lights on. Either way she needed to fix the fuse first.

Though she had recovered from the fright of the bulb blowing, her heart was still trying to find its normal rhythm and her imagination was still trying to hamper her confidence. Too many teenage years watching horror films had fuelled it with unknown horrors, and her subconscious held threats her rational mind could only shake its head at.

‘Get a bloody grip, woman!’ she said, training the torch beam on the fuse box and wondering why the thing wasn’t in a museum. It seemed Bob had done his best to make sense of the beast, or more like several beasts – there were four separate boxes and two meters, all looking as if they had been tacked on as afterthoughts. Fortunately, someone had labelled all the chunky Bakelite fuses so that it wasn’t too difficult to locate the one that had blown. In his wisdom Bob had also left a card of fuse wire and a pair of snips resting on top of the first meter. Maura blew a kiss into the dank air and said ‘Bless you, Bob’.

It was a fiddly job by torchlight and she had no idea which thickness of wire to use. Too thin and it might blow again, too thick and she might overload it and burn the house down. Deciding to take the centre ground, she plumped for the one in the middle and silently cursed Estelle Hall for her frugality. It was 2015 (for goodness’ sake) but Essen Grange seemed to be clinging on to the Dark Ages and still marvelling at Edison’s ingenuity. With her repair complete and the fuse reinserted into its slot, she climbed the stairs and flipped the light switch, breathing a huge sigh of relief when the lights came back on. Bob would be proud, but she’d need him to check she’d used the right amperage wire, and she’d also need to find his dog. ‘Buster, come on boy, biscuits…’

The mention of biscuits, a word that clearly had a resonance associated with pleasure for the dog, seemed to do the trick and he bounded out of the shadows and ran up the steps, straight past her and towards the kitchen. ‘Attaboy,’ she said with a smile. After locking the cellar door and replacing the key, she turned into the hall and stood in the centre, sticking one finger up at the house and poking her tongue out in a gesture of childish contempt at its efforts to thwart her.

The light from the kitchen passageway helped but it still took the torch to show her why the bulb had exploded. Water had dripped down from the light fitting. It occurred to her that the guest bathroom she’d used was situated above the kitchen and that something had leaked. Bugger! She dare not try and replace the bulb until she knew whether it was her own carelessness that had caused it, or whether it was a genuine leak that would need to be fixed. It wasn’t dripping any more, but a puddle of water had mingled with the broken glass on the table. She couldn’t see where the rest of the glass might have landed, and Buster was mooching about the room and snuffling. All she needed now was a dog with glass stuck in his paws.

The biscuit jar was near the door and she managed to lure him into the passageway with a hobnob, relieved to see he wasn’t limping or trailing blood. But he did have something in his mouth, which he gladly gave up in exchange for the treat.

Maura picked up the mouldering teddy bear, damp from the dog’s saliva, and wondered why on earth she hadn’t noticed it when he’d run past her up the cellar steps. She’d been too busy feeling relieved that she’d fixed the lights to notice much. The bear was a sorry-looking thing, bald in places and with a single loose eye that dangled above a much-darned woollen nose. It also stank of mould and was a little green around the gills. Buster seemed to have taken quite a shine to it, but for all Maura knew it was a much-loved family heirloom, so giving it to the dog to be enthusiastically disembowelled was probably not a good idea. Buster was easily fobbed off with another biscuit and allowed his newfound friend to be taken to the downstairs cloakroom where Maura sponged him down with a damp flannel, squirted him with a bit of air freshener and set him to dry on the radiator.

With that she locked the kitchen-passage door and made her way up to bed, Buster padding behind her – she was way beyond wanting coffee. Cheryl might have made warning about where the dog could sleep, but as far as Maura was concerned, what Cheryl didn’t know couldn’t worry her. Anyway, the smell of dog on her bed had to be marginally preferable to the smell of camphor, and one warm body was as good as another when you were alone in a house that was doing its damnedest to freak you out.

She’s left the upstairs lights on this time, and she’s kept the dog with her. Clever girl, but not clever enough. There have been interesting developments today. I’ve been quietly flitting between the house and building site to see what was going on. Predictable that the police made the Grange their first port of call, and interesting that the detective lingered outside looking so tense while he smoked his cigarette. Something had puzzled him about the house, and it wasn’t just the body in the orchard. I wonder if he spotted it, the inconsistency? Most don’t. They just know the house is all wrong, but they can’t say why. The nurse shut the door in his face. Interesting indeed. Those two have a history they can’t hide, even from each other, and certainly not from me. Not that I care. I see everything.

A few more days and it will be time to put the wheels in motion – but this time not with a rock thrown in temper but with something much more intrusive. Something deadly. Something put in motion not by me, but by them, by their sins.

Chapter Eight

The morning had gone well: no more water had leaked onto the table, she’d found all the glass, the porridge had been Goldilocks-perfect, and so far the house hadn’t sabotaged her. Bob was coming to check her dodgy fuse repair, Cheryl was due any minute, and Buster was happily sniffing around the garden finding a choice spot for his ablutions. Maura was about to smile when the screaming began.

It was Gordon’s habit to retire to the cloakroom for a precise half hour after his breakfast before he required help with washing and dressing. He’d been in there barely a minute when he started to holler. ‘Get it out. Get it away from me!’

The sight of an elderly, thin and distressed man sitting on a toilet with his pyjama bottoms around his ankles was more than Maura could stand after the day had started so well. ‘What’s the matter? Mr Henderson, Gordon, calm down, tell me what’s wrong,’ she said as calmly as she could while the half-naked man twisted and flailed his arms at her. Tempting as it was to grab his wrists to stop the assault in the small space, she daren’t. His wrists were as thin as a bundle of breadsticks and his skin was like fine vellum; she was scared she might injure him if she was too hasty. Gordon didn’t seem to have the same concerns and clawed at her in panic, scraping his long yellow nails down her arm and swiping her across the face. The instinctive reaction to pain is to lash out, but she couldn’t; instead she wedged herself alongside the toilet, got behind him as best she could and wrapped him in a bear hug.

‘Let’s calm down and find out what’s wrong. What’s upset you?’ she said firmly into his bristly ear. It was an undignified situation for both of them and she needed to resolve it as quickly as possible.

Gordon was sobbing, his breath coming in thick gasps and gulps. He struggled against her hold. ‘Take it away, take it away, get it away from me,’ he cried.

‘Take what away?’ She could think of nothing in the room that hadn’t been there before until she remembered the bear. ‘Is it the bear? Is that what’s bothering you?’

Gordon wailed and nodded. ‘Get it away, please,’ he gasped miserably.

‘If I let you go, are you going to sit still while I take it away? I don’t want you to fall because I can’t pick you up in here if you do.’ It was true. The tiny cloakroom barely had room for two of them standing, let alone wedged as they were. If he fell now, she’d have to pull him out by his feet.

Gordon nodded. ‘Just get it away from me and never let me see it again. They promised me I’d never have to see it again.’

Maura had no idea what it was about the toy that had upset him so much. When she’d taken it from Buster the night before, she’d thought it might be Gordon’s childhood companion and that he’d be happy to get reacquainted. She’d hoped she might be able to use it to have a conversation with him, enjoy some nostalgia and break him out of his reclusive, obsessive ways. ‘OK, I’ll let you go and I’ll take it away.’ She loosened her grip and sidled away from him, moving herself in front of the bear so he couldn’t see it.

Gordon was muttering and shaking, wringing his hands together then rubbing them down his thin legs. ‘Told her to burn it, burn it all. Told her to get rid of it,’ he muttered.

Maura reached behind her and groped for the bear. She didn’t want him to see it at all in case it set him off again. Once she had the thing in her grasp she backed towards the open door and dropped it, kicking it out of sight of the cloakroom. ‘There, it’s gone.’

Gordon looked up, his eyes still wet with tears. ‘Take it away, take it out of this house and burn it. Burn all of it.’

Maura hesitated – he seemed in no fit state to be left alone.

‘LEAVE ME BE!’ he shouted.

Reluctantly she shut the door, but loitered there listening as he continued to mutter to himself. She couldn’t hear the words but he seemed to be calming himself. The bear lay forlorn and innocent on the hall floor and Maura couldn’t imagine what memories it had conjured to provoke such a reaction in the old man, but it clearly symbolised something that was abhorrent to him. She bent and picked it up, turning it in her hands as if something telling would reveal itself. It was just an old, worn-out bear. He wanted it out of the house and the simplest thing to do would be to throw it in the dustbin.

Halfway there she changed her mind and, without dwelling on the decision, walked to her car, unlocked it and threw the bear onto the back seat. When she got back to the house, Gordon was standing in the hall. ‘Is it gone?’

She nodded. ‘Are you all right? Can I get you anything?’

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