Good Morning, Midnight

There was silence, though in his mind Maycock could hear police constables pissing themselves laughing all over Mid-Yorkshire.

‘Report back to me as soon as your check’s finished. Out,’ said the sergeant in a quiet controlled voice.

‘Think you’ve made a friend there,’ said Maycock.

‘He can please his bloody self.’

‘Aye, but we’d best do what you’ve told him we’re doing,’ said Maycock, getting out of the car. ‘Come on. Let’s take a look.’

‘I’ve not finished me cod yet!’ protested Jennison.

But to tell the truth his appetite was fading. For Joker Jennison had a secret. He was scared of the dark, and particularly scared of old dark houses. His fear was metaphysical rather than physical. Muscular muggers and crazy crack-heads he took in his stride. But in his infancy he couldn’t sleep without a night-light and as a teenager he’d fainted while watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show. On reviving and realizing the damage this was likely to do to his street cred, he had faked every symptom of every illness he could think of, causing a meningitis scare in his school and getting him confined to an isolation ward in the infirmary while they did tests. It had worked as far as his mates were concerned, but on joining the police force (which itself had been an act of denial), he had soon realized that if he fainted every time he had to enter a deserted property with only his torch for light, pretence of illness would get him thrown out as quickly as admission of terror. So he had learned to grit his teeth and keep his true feelings hidden behind the screen of pleasantries that got him his nickname.

Now he remained stubbornly in his seat as his partner mounted the steps to the open door. Moscow House seemed to grow in bulk as he watched, towering high into the swirling mist where it wasn’t hard for his straining eyes to detect ruined battlements around which flitted squeaking bats.

Then the mist came rolling down the dark façade as if bent on putting a curtain between himself and Alan Maycock.

‘Oh shit,’ said Jennison again. What was worse, out here alone or in there with his partner?

That part of his mind still in touch with reason told him that if anything happened to Maycock he’d have to go into the house anyway.

With a sigh of desperation, he rolled his bulk out of the car, crushed the remnants of his fish supper into a ball and hurled it into the darkness, then jogged towards the house shouting, ‘Hang about, you daft bugger. I’m coming!’

5

a tight cork

‘What do they put these things in with? Sledgehammers?’ snarled Cressida Maciver, gripping the bottle between her knees and hauling at the corkscrew with both hands.

Ellie Pascoe smiled uneasily and glanced at her watch. Half eight, two empty bottles lying on the floor, and they hadn’t even eaten yet. Nor could her sensitive nose detect any evidence of food in preparation wafting from the kitchen, and Cress was one of those cooks who couldn’t scramble an egg without sprinkling it with spices.

But it wasn’t the thought of going hungry that caused her unease. It was the fact that on a couple of previous occasions, even with food, the opening of a third bottle had been closely followed by an attempt at seduction which came close to sexual assault. After the second time, Ellie had been ready with various stratagems to pre-empt the well-signalled pounce, and though their farewell hug sometimes came close to frottage, she had managed to escape without damage. Sober, next time they met, Cress seemed to have forgotten everything in the same way that, drunk, she clearly had no recollection of Ellie’s having confided in her that once, at university, curiosity and a determination not to appear repressed or naive had got her into a female lecturer’s bed, but the experience had done nothing for her and wasn’t one she had any desire to repeat.

Usually she got a taxi home, but when her husband, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe had announced they’d need a baby-sitter as piles of neglected paperwork were going to keep him at his desk deep into the evening, she’d declared that what they lost on the sitter they could gain on the taxi and arranged for him to pick her up about ten thirty, which was the usual danger time. Now the schedule was blown to hell, and as well as uneasy, Ellie felt cheated. She was very fond of Cress, and in matters of taste generally, politics sufficiently, and humour absolutely, they shared so much that their evenings together before the hormones took over were a delight which tonight looked like being cut well short.

The assaults always occurred when Cressida was between men, which was pretty frequently. The intensity of her commitment was more than most could abide for long. The journey from feeling adored and cosseted to feeling cribbed, cabined and confined was a short one, in some cases taking only a matter of days. In the aftermath of break-up, Cressida always turned to her female friends for comfort. Men were only good for one thing, and that was overrated. Passion was for pubescents. Female friendship was the thing. Which sensible life-view ruled her mind until the opening of the third bottle, when a meeting of mature female minds was suddenly discarded in favour of a close encounter of mature female flesh.

The last break-up seemed to have been even more than usually traumatic.

‘I really liked the guy,’ she bewailed. ‘He had everything. And I mean everything. Including a Maserati. Have you ever had sex in a Maserati, Ellie?’

Ellie pursed her lips as if running though a check list of top cars, then admitted she’d missed out.

‘Never mind,’ said her friend consolingly. ‘The driving position’s fabulous but the shagging position’s absolute agony. But you wouldn’t believe a guy driving a car like that would turn out to have five kids and a religion that won’t let his wife entertain the idea of divorce.’

Her eyes glinted malevolently.

‘Maybe if I had a word with his wife that would change her religion,’ she added.

‘Cress, you wouldn’t.’

‘Of course I wouldn’t. Not unless provoked. And why the hell am I wasting quality time with my dearest friend talking about that sunburnt shit of a witch doctor?’

She gave a mighty heave at the corkscrew and succeeded in hauling it out of the bottle, but only at the expense of leaving half the cork in the neck.

Oh well, that should delay matters a little, thought Ellie, offering up a prayer of thanks to whatever it was that almost certainly wasn’t there.

As if to reproach her for this qualification in her devotion, the phone rang.

‘Shit,’ said Cressida. ‘See what you can do with this sodding thing, will you?’

As soon as she left the room, Ellie pulled out her mobile and pressed her husband’s speed-dial key. He answered almost immediately.

‘Peter,’ she whispered. ‘It’s me.’

‘What? It’s a lousy line.’

‘Just listen. I need you earlier.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Second bottle time already, eh?’

He was quick. That was one of the good things about him. One of many good things.

‘Third,’ she said. ‘No sign of food and she’s been dumped again. Some medic. She’s started on about the problems of sex in a Maserati.’

‘Poor thing. Can’t you tell her you’ve got a headache? Always works with me.’

‘Ha ha. Can you get here soon? Say it’s some problem with the sitter.’

‘I’m on my way. Fifteen minutes tops. Hang in there, girl.’

She’d just got the phone into her bag when Cressida came back into the room.

‘Sue-Lynn,’ she said. ‘My sister-in-law. Wants to know if I’ve heard from Pal. Seems he didn’t turn up for his squash with Jase and nobody knows where he is. Silly bitch.’

In the five years of their friendship, she’d never talked in any detail about her family, not even her brother Pal with whom she was close and who’d been indirectly responsible for bringing Ellie and Cress together. He ran an antique shop called Archimagus in the town’s medieval area near the cathedral. Ellie had been in a couple of times without buying anything and without registering more about the proprietor than that he was a good-looking young man who after a token offer of help became a non-hassling background presence. On the third occasion when she expressed interest in a seventeenth-century knife box in walnut with a beautiful mother-of-pearl butterfly inlay on the lid, he’d answered her questions with an eloquent expertise that very subtly implied that only a person of the most sensitive taste would have selected this item above all the rest of his stock. Finally he suggested she took it home to see how it looked in situ, no obligation, which had made a young woman who’d just come into the shop roar with laughter.

‘I bet he hasn’t mentioned the price yet,’ she said.

On reflection, Ellie had to admit this was true.

A price was mentioned. Ellie looked at the newcomer and raised an eyebrow enquiringly.

She pursed her lips, shook her head and said, ‘That the best you can do for a friend of your sister?’

‘You two are friends?’ said Pal.

Cressida had looked at Ellie, grinned and said, ‘No, but I think we could be.’

To which Pal had replied, ‘So let me know how it works out, then we can discuss a possible price cut.’

It had worked out well and the knife box now adorned the Pascoe dining room. But though her friendship with Cressida burgeoned, the brother never became anything more than an antiques dealer with whom she was on first-name terms. As for the rest of the family, Ellie had picked up that there was a younger sister, and also that they’d lost their parents some time in childhood, but she’d made no attempt to pry into the exact nature of the evident tensions and problems Cress’s upbringing had left her with. This didn’t mean she wasn’t curious – hell, they were friends, weren’t they? And knowing your friends was even more important than knowing your enemies – but in Ellie’s book though mere curiosity might get you nebbing into the life of a stranger, it was never enough to justify sticking your nose into the affairs of a friend.

But if the confidences came unasked, she was not about to discourage them, particularly in a situation where they also served the useful function of postponing the threatened pounce.

‘You’re not worried?’ she said.

‘No. He’s probably still at work, giving discount.’

‘Sorry?’

Cressida grinned.

‘Well-heeled ladies love their objets d’art but love their money even more. Pal says I’d be amazed how many of them after a bout of haggling will say, “Do you give a discount for cash, Mr Maciver? Or something …?”’

‘I presume you didn’t say this to your sister-in-law?’

‘Thought about it, but in the end I just said if she was really worried she should ring the police and the hospitals.’

‘Decided to go for reassurance then.’

‘You needn’t concern yourself about Sue-Lynn. Self-centred cow. Any worries she’s got will be about herself, not Pal.’

‘But his squash partner is worried too … Jase, you said?’

‘Jason Dunn. My brother-in-law,’ said Cressida, sounding rather surprised, as if she’d just worked out the relationship.

‘So, married to your sister?’

‘Yeah, Helen the child bride.’

‘Lot younger than you then?’ said Ellie.

‘She’s younger than everyone,’ said Cress dismissively. ‘Like Snow White. Doesn’t get any older no matter how often you see the picture. Only this one still adores the wicked stepmother.’

‘Stepmother?’ This was completely new. ‘I didn’t know you had a stepmother.’

‘Not something I boast about. You don’t want to hear all this crap. Haven’t you got that bottle open yet?’

‘Sorry. It’s this broken cork. This stepmother, is she really wicked?’

‘Goes with the job, doesn’t it? She’s a pain in the arse anyway. You’ve probably seen her name in the papers. You wouldn’t forget it. Kay Kafka, would you believe? Why do Yanks always have these crazy fucking names? Here, let me try.’

She grabbed the bottle from Ellie and began poking at the broken cork.

Ellie, feeling that a gibe about names didn’t come well from someone called Cressida who had a brother called Palinurus, was by now sufficiently interested in the family background to have pursued it even without its pounce-postponing potential.

‘So you don’t care for your stepmother? And Pal?’

‘Hates her guts.’

‘But Helen took to her?’

‘She was only a kid when Dad remarried. It was easy for Kay to sink her talons in. Me and Pal were older, our shells had toughened up.’

‘And when your father died … when was that?’

‘Ten years ago. Pal was of age so out of it. I was seventeen so officially still in need of a responsible adult to care over me. I was determined it wasn’t going to be Kay even if it meant signing up with dotty old Vinnie till I made eighteen.’

‘Vinnie?’

‘My aunt Lavinia. Dad’s only sister. Mad as a hatter; you need feathers and a beak before she’ll even speak to you. But being a blood relative did the trick and I was able to give Kay the finger.’

‘But Helen thought different?’

‘Don’t think thought entered into it. She was only nine. Pal and I tried to get her out of the clutches, but she went all hysterical at the idea of being separated from Kay. Poor little cow. Not much upstairs, and I’m sure Kay preferred it that way. She’s a real control freak. Probably handpicked Helen’s husband with that in mind too.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Jason. He’s a PE teacher at Weavers, so not what you’d call an intellectual giant. But a real hunk. And hung. Known as a bit of a stud before Helen hooked him. They say he fucks like a Rossini overture.’

This was an interesting concept but not one that Ellie, in her present antaphrodisiac mode, felt it wise to pursue.

‘So Helen’s stayed close to her stepmother? Which means you and Pal aren’t all that close to Helen?’

Cressida shrugged.

‘She made her choice.’

‘But Pal plays squash with Jason?’

‘Yes, he does,’ said Cressida. ‘Can’t think why, especially as I’m sure Jase must whup the shit out of him and Pal’s not a good loser. Still there’s nowt so queer as folks, is there? And most of us are even queerer than we think.’

She gave Ellie what could only be described as a suggestive leer, then said, ‘Fuck this,’ and drove the broken segment of cork down into the bottle, squirting wine over her hand and forearm.

She raised her fingers to her mouth and licked the red drops off, her eyes fixed on Ellie and a tiny smile twitching her lips.

‘More ways of popping a reluctant cork than one, eh?’ she said. ‘Pass your glass.’

6

a fishy smell

Moscow House was full of light, which the shuttered and curtained windows kept penned within. Only through the open front door did any escape to offer a weak challenge to the besieging fog.

Finding the electricity switched on had been a big bonus, particularly for Jennison, but he still stuck close to his partner as they went methodically through the downstairs rooms, then headed upstairs.

‘Hello hello hello,’ said Maycock as he pushed open a bedroom door to reveal a double bed, neatly made up, though not with fresh linen. ‘This looks like it’s still in use.’

‘Yeah. Hey, do you think some of the girls might have been using this place to bring their punters?’

‘Could be.’ Maycock sniffed the air. ‘Smell a bit sexy to you?’

Jennison sniffed.

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Think it’s thy haddock.’

There was only one door they couldn’t open.

Some of Jennison’s uneasiness returned. In haunted houses there was always one door that was locked, and when you opened it …

Maycock was kneeling down.

‘Key’s in the lock on the inside,’ he said.

Jennison said hopefully, ‘Maybe one of the girls heard us come in and she’s locked herself in here.’

‘Could be.’

Maycock banged his fist against the solid oak panel and called, ‘It’s the police. If there’s anyone in there, come on out.’

Jennison stepped back in alarm, recalling tales of vampires and such creatures who could only join humankind if invited.

Nothing happened.

Maycock stooped to the keyhole again. Once more he sniffed.

‘More sex?’ said Jennison.

‘Bit of a burnt smell.’

‘You think there’s a fire in there?’

‘No. Not strong enough. Listen.’

He pressed his ear to the door.

‘Can you hear something?’

‘What?’

‘Sort of whirring, scratching noise.’

‘Scratching?’ said Jennison unhappily, his imagination reviewing a range of possibilities, none of them comforting.

‘Yeah. Here, give it a try with your shoulder.’

Obediently, Jennison leaned against the door and heaved.

‘Jesus, you couldn’t open a paper bag like that.’

‘You try then. Didn’t I hear you once had a trial for Bradford? Or were that a trial at Bradford for masquerading as a rugby player?’

Provoked, Maycock hit the door with all his strength and bounced back nursing his shoulder.

‘No go,’ he said. ‘Bolted as well as locked, I’d say.’

‘Better call this in,’ said Jennison.

He spoke into his personal radio, gave details of the situation, was told to wait.

They went to the head of the stairs and sat down.

‘Not one of my best ideas, this,’ admitted Maycock. ‘We’d have been better off eating our nosh outside the chippie, and bugger Bonkers.’

Jennison surreptitiously crossed himself and wished he had some garlic. He knew that at times of psychic stress it was a dangerous thing to name evil spirits as that could easily summon them up. So it came as a shock but no surprise when out of the air came a familiar voice, saying, ‘So there you are, making yourselves comfortable. OK, what’s going off here? And why does your car smell like a chip-shop?’

They peered into the hallway and found themselves gazing down at the slim athletic figure of Sergeant Bonnick who’d just come through the open door.

They scrambled to their feet but were saved from having to answer by the radio.

‘Keyholder to Moscow House is a Mr Maciver, first name Palinurus. Just say if you need that spelt, Joker. We’ve rung the number given and got hold of Mrs Maciver. She got a bit agitated when we told her we wanted to talk to her husband about Moscow House. She says she doesn’t know where he is, in fact nobody seems to know where he is, and he’s missed some kind of appointment this evening. I’ve passed this on to Mr Ireland. Hold on. He’s here.’

Ireland was the duty inspector.

‘Alan, you’re sure there’s a key on the inside of that locked door?’

‘Certain, sir.’

‘Then I think from the sound of it you ought to take a look inside. You need assistance to break in?’

Bonnick spoke into his radio.

‘Sergeant Bonnick here, sir. No need. I’ve got a ram in my boot. I’ll get back to you soon as we’re in.’

He tossed his keys to Jennison, who set off down the stairs.

‘Be prepared, eh, Sarge?’ said Maycock. ‘Good idea carrying everything you might need around with you.’

‘Not always, else you’d be towing a mobile chippie,’ said Bonnick. ‘Show me this locked room.’

He examined the door carefully and stooped to check through the keyhole.

‘Key’s still there,’ he said.

‘Well, it would be,’ said Maycock. ‘Seeing as I just saw it.’

‘Not necessarily. Not if there’s someone in there to take it out,’ said Bonnick.

‘We did shout.’

‘Oh well then, they were bound to answer,’ said the sergeant. ‘God, when did you last take some serious exercise?’

Jennison had returned, carrying the ram. He was slightly out of breath. Outside, with the mist turning even the short journey from front door to car into a ghostly gauntlet run, he hadn’t been tempted to hang about.

‘All right, which of you two still has something resembling muscle under the flab?’

‘Al had a trial for the Bulls,’ said Jennison.

‘That right, Alan? Let’s see you in action then.’

The constable hit the woodwork four or five times with the ram with no visible effect except on himself.

‘They knew how to make doors in them days,’ he gasped.

‘They knew how to make policemen too,’ growled Bonnick. ‘Give it here.’

He swung it twice. There was a loud splintering. He gave Maycock a told-you-so look.

‘Yeah, but I weakened it,’ protested the constable.

‘Let’s see what’s inside, shall we?’ said Bonnick.

He raised his right foot and drove it against the door. It flew open. Light from the landing spilled into the room.

‘Oh Jesus,’ said Bonnick.

But Jennison, whose fear of the supernatural was compensated for by a very relaxed attitude to real-life horror, exclaimed, ‘Ee bah gum, he’s made a reet mess of himself, hasn’t he, Sarge!’

7

a British Euro

The company of her stepdaughter was always a delight to Kay Kafka. They shared an affection which went all the deeper because it involved neither the constraints of blood nor the coincidence of taste and opinion. Indeed, during these regular Wednesday evening encounters, they rarely strayed nearer the harsh realities of existence than a discussion of films and fashions and local gossip, but what might (in Kay’s case at least) have been tedious in the company of another was here rendered delightful by the certainty of love.

In recent months, however, the approach of harsh reality in the form of the soon-to-be-born children had provided another topic, which could have kept them going for the whole visit if they’d let it. Even here, there wasn’t much harshness in evidence. It had been so far a comparatively easy pregnancy, and, bulk apart, Helen seemed to be enjoying her role as serenely glowing mother-in-waiting. So they would move easily over the wide range of pleasurable preparations for the great day – baby clothes, pushchairs, nursery decoration and, of course, names. Here Helen was adamant. Superstitiously she’d refused all offers to identify the gender of the twins, but if one were a girl, she was going to be called Kay.

‘And I don’t care what you say,’ she went on, ‘they’re both going to call you grandma.’

Which had brought Kay as close to tears as she’d been for a long while. She’d told the children to call her Kay when she married their father. The two elder ones did their best to avoid calling her anything polite, but Helen was young enough to want, eventually, to call her mum. Realizing the problem this would give the girl with her brother and sister, Kay had resisted.

‘I want to be her friend,’ she explained to her husband. ‘The lady’s not for mummification.’

But she never explained to him just how very hard it was for her to resist.

Grandma was different. She had no resistance to offer here. And even if she had, she doubted if it would have made a difference. Helen had powers of obduracy which could sometimes surprise. In this at least she resembled her dead father.

So she’d smiled and embraced the girl and said, ‘If that’s what you want, that’s what I’ll be. Thank you.’

It had been a good moment. One of many on these Wednesday evenings. But tonight seemed unlikely to contribute more. Somehow Jason’s phone call had disturbed the even flow, then the fog delayed the pizza delivery and when they finally turned up, they were what Kay called upper-class anglicized – pale, lukewarm and flaccid with not much on top. But the real downer was the fact that, as she entered the finishing straight of her pregnancy, it seemed finally to be dawning on Helen that the birth of the twins wasn’t just going to be a triumphal one-off champagne-popping occasion for celebration, it was going to change the whole of her life, for ever.