Chapter 7
MONDAY
For a not-quite-five-year-old, Daisy has an amazing ability to occupy space while she sleeps.
Somehow she manages to take up a large proportion of our bed, her arms flung wide in the way she used to when she was a baby.
Jess and I have rolled away in our sleep and now cling onto the edges of the bed like two bookends, the duvet half pulled off me, and a draft cooling the skin on my back.
There is also a warm weight pinning my left foot in place—the cat curled into a slumbering ball at the end of the bed, purring softly in his sleep.
I study Daisy’s peaceful features for a moment in the pale morning light, strands of blonde hair falling over her face, the nightmare that had woken her in the small hours seemingly long gone.
Of our three children, she had been the one who objected most strongly to the house move—which was strange because she had spent the least amount of time in our last place.
Sixteen-year-old Leah had been glad to get a bedroom twice the size of her old one, more room for her overflowing collection of clothes, bags, books, shoes, and everything else.
Callum, who was nearly nine, had objected at first but came around to the idea when he realized he wouldn’t be too far from his friends, his school, and would still be able to play for his football and tag rugby teams.
But Daisy had been at first confused, then defiant, and finally tearful at the prospect of leaving the cramped shared bedroom where she’d had her first proper bed, her first toy box, her first Christmas stocking from Santa. Perhaps the bed-wetting was just another manifestation of that.
Half an hour later, we’re both eating toast spread thickly with strawberry jam while Callum spoons Rice Krispies into his mouth as if he has not eaten for days. Jess is grabbing a quick shower and Leah has yet to surface, but she tends to cut it as fine as possible when it comes to school.
The kitchen is still a chaos of moving boxes, of appliances on the floor, tins and packets and bottles crowding the worktops.
It needs to wait until we have the chance to give all the dusty old shelves and cupboards a thorough going over with bleach spray and disinfectant—one of the many jobs on our to-do list.
Chewing on her toast at the kitchen counter, Daisy seems untroubled by last night’s bad dream. With any luck, she will have forgotten all about it.
Callum takes a slurp of his orange juice. Like his sister, he’s dressed in the gray and dark green of their school uniform.
“Why was Daisy crying?” he says. “Last night?”
“It doesn’t matter, Cal.”
“I heard her,” he persists. “She woke me up.”
“She had a bad dream, that’s all. It doesn’t matter.”
Daisy frowns, gives a single shake of her head. “Not a dream.”
“You said there was a man,” her brother says. “I heard you. Who was the man?”
“Not a dream.”
I cover her small hand with mine. “You know nothing in the dream can hurt you, don’t you, Daisy? It’s not real; it can’t ever get you.”
“Wasn’t though.”
“OK, so what made you—”
“Was a ghost,” she says firmly. “In my room. Behind my door.”
I put my cup of coffee down slowly, a strange chill traveling over my skin as I remember her words from last night.
Don’t let the man get me. She’s never said anything like this before.
A ghost. She occasionally has bad dreams about monsters and went through a phase of being terrified of statues—after Callum goaded her into watching a particularly scary old episode of Dr. Who with him—but she’s never been so specific before.
“A ghost,” I repeat, keeping my voice light. “Gosh. But you know that ghosts can’t hurt you, Daze.”
Callum has stopped shoveling cereal into his mouth, his large brown eyes flicking between me and his younger sibling.
“I heard some funny noises too,” he says. “In the night.”
“It’s just the house, Callum. Every house makes different noises at night; it might take a little while to get used to.”
“Sounded like someone walking around in the night,” he says quietly.
“There wasn’t anyone walking around apart from me, matey. I promise you. This is our house now—no one else here. Just us.”
“And the ghost,” Daisy mutters through a mouthful of toast.
Leah emerges into the kitchen, navy school uniform on, both hands cradled to her chest. A small pair of dark beady eyes peeps out above her fingers, pink nose twitching at the smells of breakfast.
“Look who I found,” she says.
Callum drops the spoon into his bowl in a splash of milk.
“Mr. Stay Puft!” He stands up, holding his hands out. “Where was he?”
Leah passes the small brown hamster—named for the character in the original Ghostbusters movie—carefully to her brother.
“Found him halfway down the stairs, just now. Heading for the front door like he was trying to make a break for freedom.” She goes to the sink to wash her hands. “You shouldn’t leave his cage open, Cal. You need to keep an eye on him.”
“Didn’t leave it open though,” Callum says in a high voice. “I swear.”
I lean back against the kitchen counter. “Perhaps that’s what you heard last night, Callum.”
But he’s not listening to me anymore. His breakfast forgotten, he heads for the stairs, cradling the hamster, and talking to it in soft tones. Daisy slides off the stool and scampers after her brother, insisting that she wants to help, to see the cage, to hold Mr. Stay Puft as well. To be involved.
Jess sweeps in, refilling her mug from the coffee pot.
She’s dressed in her decorating clothes, faded jeans and an old gray sweatshirt, her short dark hair still wet from the shower.
Over the last few years she’s come to dislike her job—she’s an account manager for a large insurance company—to the extent that she relishes every single day of leave, even if she spends it unpacking and assembling furniture.
“What was all that about?” she says.
I give her a brief recap of Daisy’s dream and the hamster’s escape.
My wife sips her coffee. “We knew the move was going to be unsettling for her—new room, new house. New everything. And she’s got a very vivid imagination.”
“I know.” I reach for another piece of toast from the rack.
She gives me a quizzical look. “But?”
“But… the way she described it in such a vivid way, a guy in her room.” I shake my head. “It was so specific. She was shaking when I went to her last night. Goodness knows where she got that from.”
“Poor baby. She just needs to get used to everything, that’s all, get all of her toys unpacked and everything in its place.”
“It’s your turn tonight, if it happens again.”
She grins, leaning over to give me a peck on the cheek. “But she always shouts for you when she’s scared. Always for Daddy.”
“Only because you trained her to.”
“And you do such a good job.” She unplugs her mobile from where it’s been charging on the counter, glancing distractedly at the screen.
“Don’t suppose you got a reply, did you?” I indicate her phone. “After you left the message?”
She’s scrolling something on the screen.
“What message?”
“Last night,” I say. “The number you found in the little flip phone?”
“No. Nothing.” She slides the mobile into a pocket, picks up her cup of coffee again. “So, what have you got on at work today? Any chance you can get away early?”
I start clearing the breakfast things. “Just got a couple of meetings later, a report to finish.” A twinge of guilt at how easily the lie comes. “I’ll get off as early as I can, get some more jobs done around the house this evening.”
“And would those jobs, by any chance, involve you disappearing into your secret hideaway on the top floor again?”
“No.”
“You sure?” She raises an eyebrow. “Because I know what you’re like, Adam Wylie.”
“What am I like?”
“A dog with a bone.”
I shrug, glad to steer the conversation away from the topic of my job. “Don’t you think it’s interesting though? No one’s been in there for years; it’s like a little time capsule, perfectly preserved.”
“Interesting to the last owners, maybe. I’d rather have the extra space in that bedroom.”
“But it’s a weird thing to leave behind. And the way those things are all in individual drawers, like it might have been a kid’s playroom or something. It’s our own little mystery.”
I’ve always liked to know how things work, to get inside them and understand what each part did, why it was there. As a boy, I’d driven my parents mad by taking things apart, trying to figure them out—I had raided my dad’s toolbox more times than I could remember.
“Just stuff though, isn’t it?” Jess flashes me her smile, the one that still makes me feel like the luckiest man in the world. “And we have more than enough stuff already. Unless you’ve actually found a mysterious wardrobe that leads to Narnia up there?”
“Sadly not.”
“Or an original manuscript of Shakespeare’s lost play?”
“Nope.”
“Maybe an old skeleton bricked up in the wall?”
I return her smile. “Just a chair and table and an old Welsh dresser with a few bits and pieces inside.”
“Well then, I’d say we both need to crack on with unpacking and getting the house straight.”
I knew she was right—there were a million other things we needed to do to get the house in livable condition before we even started on the decorating.
“And anyway,” she says, “we need to make space for the new furniture.”
“What?”
“All the new stuff I’ve ordered.” She takes a bite of toast. “It’s arriving next Wednesday.”
The smile freezes on my face, a cold wash of unease spreading out from the center of my chest. I couldn’t remember exactly how much we had talked about putting on the joint credit card to kit out the new house, but it had been a lot.
Thousands of pounds, that we would use my bonus from work to start paying off.
Dining table, chairs, sofas, wardrobes, mirrors, desks, furniture for the kids’ bedrooms.
I feel sick, a bubble of nausea rising up my throat.
“You… ordered it already?” I try hard to keep my tone neutral. “I thought we were going to talk about it first?”
“We did, remember?”
“That was ages ago. Months.”
“But we’re here now, aren’t we? And John Lewis had an offer on, it was going to run out so I had to get on with ordering it all.”
“Right.”
“Are you feeling OK, Adam? You’ve gone a bit pale.”
“Fine.” I make a show of checking my watch. “I’m fine. You know what? I should probably get going. Don’t want to be late for work.”