Haunted Shadows 1: Sickness Behind Young Eyes (9 page)

His tone was kind. It seemed like
some people were exempt from his bluster.

“I’ve always got time for my daughter
and her – “

Clive looked at me, as if searching
for the word.

“Assistant,” I filled in. “This is
Jeremiah, my assistant.”

I decide that there was nothing to be
gained from correcting Clive. If he thought I was his daughter, then so be it.
It was obvious that his real daughter never bothered to come and see him. I
felt Jeremiah’s gaze burn on me, but I let my lips wrap into a smile.

“I’m so proud of you,” said Clive. “A
high-flier. City slicker. Not like your old dad.”

Jeremiah straightened in his chair.

“I wanted to ask you about a pupil of
yours.”

Clive’s eyebrows arched. “Oh? Not
that bloody Thomas, is it?”

“No,” said Jeremiah. “Emily Jenkins.”

Clive ran his hand over his head as
if expecting curls to topple between his fingers, but his hair was sparse. He
pulled his fingers away and seemed confused for a moment.

“I don’t recall her," he said.

“Little girl, black hair. Quiet.
Moody,” said Jeremiah.

Clive’s face was one of utter
confusion. Whether it was through fading memories of the years or the
advancement of his condition, it was clear that he struggled with the name. He
needed something to prompt him. I didn’t want to speak of it, but I knew what
would spark a fire of memory in him. I thought about the diary.

“You made her sit next to a boy
called Thomas," I said. “He stole all her pens. Her name was Emily
Jenkins.”

Clive’s face drained of colour until
he turned as grey as the sky outside. His eyes grew wide, and he shrank back so
far it seemed like he was going to flop on the bed. He shifted away from us, as
if putting distance between himself and the name.

His face twisted into a mask of
terror. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words formed. Instead a cry
crawled out of his throat, as if it was the only sound he could manage. I
bolted out of my seat. It looked like he was going to pass out.

He moved even further along the bed
until he bumped his head against the back wall. He was like a child scampering
away from a monster. The groan trailed away, and he stared at us blankly. Then,
not daring to take his eyes off us, he reached his hand out toward the panic
alarm.

Jeremiah stood up, walked to the end
of the bed and pulled it away from him.

“Just a few questions,” he said.

17

Jeremiah had never scared me until
now. There was something chilling about the way he snatched the panic button
away from Clive. He was calm, but there was a look in his eyes that suggested
Clive should do as he say. The old man shrank back against the headboard of the
bed.

“Nurse!” he shouted.

“Maybe we better go,” I said.

Jeremiah shot me a dirty look. “I’m
sick of this place. I’ve had it with their cover-ups and bullshit.”

“Are you saying he’s faking his
condition?”

“They fake everything else around
here, so why not?” He leaned into Clive’s face. “Tell us about Emily.”

White eyes stared back. “Don’t say
that name. I don’t know who you mean.”

Jeremiah’s shoulders shook. “Tell
us.”

“Nurse!”

Footsteps ran along the corridors
toward our room. The door opened and the receptionist stood there, eyes wide as
if she didn’t know what to expect. I wondered why a nurse hadn’t come. Did this
woman have to play nurse to the fifty-odd residents as well as receptionist?

“What the hell is going on here?”

“I want to see his medical records,”
said Jeremiah.

The woman arched her eyebrow. “Are
you his doctor?” Her tone was sarcastic.

“Does he really have Alzheimer’s? Has
he actually been diagnosed?”

Clive looked up at Jeremiah from the
bed. He winced when he heard the word. Sadness stabbed through my chest when I
realised we were talking about Clive like he couldn’t hear us. It seemed like
because he had his condition, we assumed that he didn’t matter and that he
couldn’t process our words. The fact was that he was probably cleverer than all
of us.

“We better go,” I told Jeremiah.

Jeremiah pointed at Clive. “Tell us
about the girl.”

The receptionist held a walkie-talkie
in her hand. “I can have security here in five minutes.”

Jeremiah hung his head. He walked
toward the door, shoulders sagging like a tire bleeding out air. As he passed
me he looked at me with sad eyes.

“This is a lost cause, Ella. It’s all
a big waste of time.”

There was hurt in his tone, as though
the misdirection and lies of the villagers were a weight pressing down on him.
I understood how much this all meant to him; that investigating this stuff was
his life, and he wanted to find mysteries that he could scientifically prove
and then show them to the world.

There was something real to this one.
I knew that from the way goosebumps raised on my skin when I thought of going
back to my room. Knowing that was the case meant that I could never talk about
it,  because talking about what I saw would mean acknowledging her existence.
Then those horrible knocks would come, not just on my door but on Jeremiah’s
too.

We walked out of Clive’s room and
down the gloomy corridor, our footsteps sinking into the decades-old carpet.
The receptionist walked briskly ahead, so fast she almost slipped into a run.
It was like she didn’t like venturing too far into the building, that it was
safer behind her reception desk where she could see the front door.

As we got into the lobby I gave
Jeremiah a dig in the ribs. When he turned his head toward me I gave him a
knowing look.

”Listen,” I said, looking at the
receptionist. “I’m Clive’s daughter, you know.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Surely you’ve seen me here
before?”

“I only started a few months ago.
Never seen you here.”

I hung my head. “Yeah. I don’t come
as often as I could. Think I could go see him again? Just me on my own?”

The receptionist put her fingers to
her chin. The remains of flecked-away polish clung onto her nails.

“Aye, go ahead.”

When I pushed open Clive’s door and
walked into his room, his shoulders twitched in alarm. He stared behind me into
the corridor, but after seeing it was just me his posture relaxed.

I looked around his room. Aside from
the bookcase there was little to show how he accounted for his time. Did he
just lie in bed and stare at the walls? For his sake I hoped not, because they
weren’t a nice sight.

Familiar watercolour paintings hung
over the seventies-style wallpaper.  I walked up to the wall and stood in front
of one of them. It was of the woodlands outside of town, and it was by the same
artist as the ones I had seen before. My throat tightened as I stared at the
scene.

The trees bunched together to create
pillars of darkness and sucked away any light that dared shine at them. Outside
the woods four children played. The boys seemed to be wrestling with each
other, while the girls drew symbols on the grass in chalk. Beyond them, deep in
the heart of the woodlands, were four figures. They were too far into the
shadows to see clearly, but their black outlines were there all the same. They
watched the children, and seemed to be waiting for them to venture into the
woods.

“I see these everywhere,” I said.
“Guy must be famous.”

Clive laughed. “Trust me, he’s not
famous. I’d venture to say that most people bought his paintings out of pity.”

“They’re so dark and depressing.”

“He was that kind of man.”

I turned and looked at him. He looked
much more at ease with just me in the room. “It was you, wasn’t it?” I asked.

Clive nodded slowly.

I pulled out a chair opposite him.
“Mind if I sit?”

“Park your bum.”

The wind swept along the fields
outside and blew the grass to one side like a comb running through hair. The
clouds were wispy in some places and thick in others, struggling to decide
whether to give the village another lashing of rain. There was a chill to the
air, and it was the kind of weather that drove people indoors where they’d
light up their fires and shiver into their clothes.

“I’m sorry about Jeremiah,” I said.

“He’s a thug.”

“He’s just passionate.”

Clive looked to the walls at one of
his paintings. His eyelids were heavy like a basset hound, and glumness settled
over him.

“Haven’t painted in years. Can’t seem
to do it, any more.  As soon as I get an idea it slips away.”

“Why do you paint the forest so
much?”

He let out a shaky breath. “Because I
used to think about them a lot. It was like I didn’t have any choice. My
thoughts were drawn to them, and also to…”

“To her?”

As soon as I spoke the words they
shattered over the stillness of the room like crystal smashing on a marble
floor. Clive wrapped his fingers round one side of the headboard. He looked to
the door, as if wondering whether to try and call for reception again.

“I know about it all,” I said. “I
know about her.”

The fingers of his free hand
twitched. He took hold of the bedcover and pulled it over his knees. His
forehead creased as thoughts tumbled over in his mind. Finally he shook his
head, as if he had made a decision that he was unhappy with but knew he must
stick to at the same time.

“She was such a sweet child,” he
said. His words sounded choked and desperate. “She had a nice nature. The kind
who would remember my birthday. That sort of awareness is rare in small
children. They’re usually selfish little bastards.”

He shot a look at the hallway as if
he expected someone to be stood there. “She was the cleverest girl in my class
by a mile, and there was talk of fast-tracking her into another year group. She
was clever way beyond her years, beyond any child I had ever taught. But there
was a sadness about her, too.”

I swallowed. It seemed wrong to hear
about her, like any words concerning Emily should stay unspoken. “What kind of
sadness?” I asked.

Clive’s face was pale. “There was a
sickness in those young eyes.”

He put his hands to his face. He
curled his fingers and pressed them into his skin, and for one ridiculous
second I thought he was going to start clawing at his own face to tear it off.
Instead a deep sob rumbled from his chest and out of his mouth.

I stood up and walked over to him. I
put my arms over his shoulder and brought his head tight against my stomach. I
let the old man sob against me, his shoulders heaving and shaking as the
sadness welled in him.

Finally he brought his hand away from
his face. The sadness slipped away, as though within a second it was forgotten
about.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. “Can
you bring Alfie next time?”

“Alife?”

He looked at me with a raised
eyebrow. “My beautiful grandson.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure thing.”

I knew that there was no more I would
get from Clive. He had taught Emily, and he knew that something was wrong with
her. Aside from that, there was nothing he could have done. From the painting
he made it seem like something in the village haunted him, that a spectre
rested on his shoulders. Maybe his condition was the best thing for him. It
sounded horrible, but maybe the ability to forget was a blessing.

I stood in the doorway and watched
him as he stared out of the window. There was something about the words he used
that jarred in my thoughts. I couldn’t place it, but I knew there was something
significant about what he had said.

“I’ll see you around,” I said. “It
was good to see you.”

“And you dear.”

I turned and faced the dark corridor.
I was about to leave when I heard him rustle on the bed behind me.

“Ella?”

I span round and faced him.

“Yeah?” I said.

Hang on. He just called me by my real
name.

Clive sat up straight, as if unseen
hands pulled at a string on his back. “She knows about you.”

A chill spread through my legs, into
my stomach and chest and up my arms until it felt like pins and needles stabbed
at every inch of my skin. I pulled my coat closer and walked toward the main
lobby as shadows swallowed up the corridor behind me.