House of Bones (14 page)

Lucy said, “I'll see what I can find out about Mr Vane. I've got a friend who works in the library and she's very keen on local history and family trees and stuff like that.”

“I'll get in touch with some experts on ley lines,” said Uncle Robin. “There was a TV programme
about them not too long ago … I'll see if I can find out who did it.”

“I'll go and check some more houses,” said John.

“What about the statue?”

“Don't worry, we'll be careful.”

Uncle Robin said, “That's another thing. I've never heard of a living statue before, not in Druidic lore. I'm going to have to find out what it is and what we can do to stop it. It won't be much use getting rid of Mr Vane if you've got that statue hunting you down for the rest of your life.”

John thought of that line in
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
about the traveller on a lonely road who “turns no more his head … because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread.” He was still frightened by what was happening. He still dreaded seeing the statue again, and going into Mr Vane's houses. But now that he was beginning to understand what was happening, he felt that he could cope with his fear.

He finished his tea and gave Lucy a kiss. Uncle Robin clapped him on the back and said, “You keep your eyes open, young man. We don't want anything untoward to happen to you, do we?”

John caught the bus back to Streatham High Road. It took him a few minutes of pacing up and down before he plucked up the courage to walk back into the office of Blight, Simpson & Vane,
but eventually he opened the door and marched right in. Mr Cleat was standing by one of the filing cabinets and gave him a reptilian look of surprise.

“That was a very rapid recovery,” he remarked.

John gave a loud pretend sniff and said, “It's only a cold. I thought I'd come and share it with everybody else.”

“There is no ‘everybody else' today,” said Mr Cleat. “Liam is still off sick, Lucy has the same cold as you, and Courtney is meeting some clients. Perhaps you'd like to make us some tea.”

“All right, then.”

“No sugar for Mr Vane.”

John glanced towards Mr Vane's office door and a chilling sensation ran through his nerves.

“Mr Vane's here?”

“Anything wrong with that? He's had some clients around this morning. He's got more tomorrow, too.”

“Clients? You mean he's been showing them one of his houses?”

“66 Mountjoy Avenue, as a matter of fact.”

“But you said that 66 Mountjoy Avenue wasn't in a fit state for viewing.”

“We've had the cleaners in since then,” said Mr Cleat, in his most patronizing voice.

John thought:
This is it. I can't go on pretending any longer
. He reached into his pocket and took out
Mr Rogers' ring. He held it up right in front of Mr Cleat's face.

“Well?” said Mr Cleat, trying to focus on it. “What's that supposed to be?”

“It's Mr Rogers' wedding ring. Three guesses where I found it.”

Mr Cleat opened and closed his mouth two or three times. “You didn't go
into
the house, did you?”

John nodded. “I found it upstairs on the landing. Lucy was with me. She's a witness.”

“You didn't mention it to the police when they came round here.”

“No, because I didn't think that they would take my word against yours. And because we wanted more time to find out about Mr Vane's special list.”

“There's nothing to find out,” said Mr Cleat, dismissively. “It's a list of properties, that's all.”

“They aren't just ordinary properties, though, are they?”

“Listen, John, all you need to do is to come to work promptly, do your work properly, mind your manners and mind your own business.”

“You know I can't do that, don't you, now that I know what happened to Mr Rogers.”

“Well, I don't honestly think that you
do
know what happened to Mr Rogers – so if you'd like to give me that ring I can make sure that his widow
gets it back and I think that we can forget the whole matter, don't you?”

“His
widow
?” asked John. “He's only missing. Nobody's said that he's dead.”

“Just a slip of the tongue,” said Mr Cleat. “I'll have the ring back, anyway.”

“Mr Cleat,” said John, and his heart was thumping so hard that he was sure that Mr Cleat could hear it. “You know what happened to Mr Rogers and I know what happened to Mr Rogers. The same thing that happened to all those people in Laverdale Square.”

Mr Cleat smoothed his hair back, again and again. He glanced at Mr Vane's door. “I can't discuss it,” he said. “Give me the ring.”

John shook his head. “They were all sucked in by the walls, weren't they? That's what happened to them.”

Mr Cleat was so agitated that John wasn't afraid of him any longer – especially when he leaned closer and spoke to John in a hoarse, quick whisper. “It wasn't my fault, John. I tried to get to Mr Rogers in time, but I got held up in traffic. Who knows? He might have been all right. Sometimes the houses don't take people for weeks or even months. But when I got there, he was gone. There was absolutely nothing that I could do.”

“So you've known all along what Mr Vane's houses do to people?”

Mr Cleat puckered his mouth. “I did my best to save Mr Rogers. It was the traffic.”

“You've known all along what they do to people and you don't even
care
about it? You've never tried to stop him? There were more than fifty skeletons in that house in Laverdale Square. Women and children, too.”

“John, I know. But for goodness' sake – they were well before my time, most of them, from what I've read. Victorian, Edwardian, 1920s. You can't blame me for things that happened long before I was born.”

John said, “I didn't think you knew, Mr Cleat. At least I
hoped
you didn't know.”

“Well, I didn't know for quite some time. In fact, it took me three or four years to find out. After all, why should I suspect anything? Once you've sold a house to somebody, you very rarely see them again, do you? How do you know if they've disappeared?

“Apart from that, there was nothing to arouse my suspicions, was there? Mr Vane's properties didn't change hands unusually quickly. Some of them didn't come back on the market for five or ten years, and it never occurred to me that they were standing empty. How was I to know the owners had vanished within two or three months of moving in? Sometimes it was only a matter of days. Sometimes, probably, hours.”

“But even when you found out what was going on, you still went on working for Mr Vane?”

“What else was I supposed to do? You know for yourself how difficult it is to get anybody to believe you. I called the police once, in the early days, when a family of seven went missing. They searched the property but back then I didn't have any idea
where
the people had gone, and so I didn't suggest that they knock down the walls. It wasn't until they demolished that house in Laverdale Square that I suddenly realized. It was a considerable shock, let me tell you.”

“And you're not going to resign, or say anything, even now?”

Mr Cleat's nostrils quivered. “It isn't as easy as all that. Mr Vane has done me certain favours in the past. He wouldn't accept my notice even if I handed it in.”

He paused, and then he said, “There's something else, too. A local news reporter tried to investigate Mr Vane's special list, five or six years ago. They found his body down by Streatham Common station, on the railway embankment. The police said that he was so badly battered that it looked as if a load of timber had fallen on top of him.”

The statue
, thought John.
If you start poking your nose into Mr Vane's business, that's what happens. He sends the statue to take care of you
.

Less than ten minutes later, Mr Vane came out of his office. He was wearing a black double-breasted suit and he looked even more skeletal than ever. He looked John up and down and said, “Well, well, well. I was told you had taken to your bed.”

“I'm much better now, thanks.”

Mr Vane went to the filing cabinet and pulled out one of the drawers. “I understand that you've been very busy,” he said. “I wouldn't like to overwork you.”

“I've just been doing some homework,” John replied.

Mr Vane approached him and gave him a strange, almost affectionate smile. “You ought to have been more selective, perhaps, about whose homes you were working on.”

He might have been smiling, but Mr Vane had a coldness about him which was like an open fridge. “I think it's time I gave you a little personal training, John. After all, I've been in this business for a very long time. Why don't you come along with me tomorrow when I take my clients to 66 Mountjoy Avenue?”

“Erm … I think I'm busy tomorrow. Mr Cleat wants me to tidy up the files.”

“The files can wait. You need some on-the-job experience. You need to see how a professional goes about selling a house.”

“Well, Courtney's shown me quite a lot.”

“Courtney's good, yes. But a little too
pushy
, in my opinion. You must stand back and allow your client to do all the work. Let him sell the house to himself. That way, he will always offer you a much higher price.”

John didn't know what to say. His heart was beating so loudly that he was sure that Mr Vane could hear it. Mr Cleat said, “It's a very good offer. Mr Vane's one of the best.”

Mr Vane slowly rotated his head around – almost like Megan in
The Exorcist
– and gave Mr Cleat a long, chilly look. “It's not an
offer
, David. It's an instruction.” Then he rotated his head back and said to John, “I'll be meeting my clients outside the property at four-thirty precisely tomorrow afternoon. Make sure you're punctual, make sure your shoes are polished, and don't say anything unless I tell you to.”

“All right, Mr Vane. Thanks, Mr Vane.”

Mr Vane turned around and gave him an even wider and yellower smile than before. “Don't mention it, John. Don't mention it.”

It was then that John looked over Mr Vane's shoulder and caught sight of somebody waving frantically to him from the front door. It was Courtney. He was holding up a bunch of keys, and John suddenly understood what must have happened. He had borrowed Mr Vane's keys while he was out with his clients at 66 Mountjoy Avenue,
and taken them along to the hardware store to be copied. But Mr Vane had returned before the keys were finished, and any second now he was going to go back to his desk and discover that they were gone.

Mr Vane looked at his watch. His wrist was as thin and scaly as a turkey's claw. “I'd better be going now,” he said. He reached into his pocket and produced the keys to 66 Mountjoy Avenue. He hesitated, and then he said, “I might as well take these with me. I won't have to come into the office tomorrow to pick up those new particulars, will I? Young John here can bring them out to me.”

He smiled at John again. “Half-past four, remember? Absolutely on the dot.”

After he had gone, Courtney came into the office and sat down at his desk and said, “
Fwooff
! That was close!”

Mr Cleat said, “What was close?”

John held out his hand for the keys. Courtney frowned and shook his head and whispered, “What are you doing?” but John said, “Come on. Cleaty's on our side now.”

“What?” said Courtney, in disbelief.

John continued to hold out his hand and Courtney reluctantly gave him two big bunches of assorted keys, the originals and the copies. John held them up so that Mr Cleat could see them, and said, “Now we can get into every single house on
Mr Vane's special list. We can check them all for evidence, and if we find what we're looking for, then we can call the police.”

Mr Cleat came up and John gave him all the original keys. He looked even more haggard than ever. “I hope you realize you're signing your own dismissal notice? If Mr Vane has to give up this business, then we're all out on our ears.”

“You're worried about your job?” said John. “Liam lost more than his job.”

“What are you talking about? Liam's off sick, that's all.”

John said, “No, he isn't,” and he told Mr Cleat everything that had happened at 93 Madeira Terrace. Mr Cleat slowly sat down, his eyes filling with tears.

“The other people … the people who bought Mr Vane's houses … the ones who disappeared … I never knew their names … I never knew who they were. But this … Liam—”

“Did it make any difference, not knowing their names?” Courtney demanded.

“Well, it shouldn't have done, should it?” said Mr Cleat, wiping his eyes and noisily blowing his nose. “But I was frightened, I suppose.”

“Everybody gets frightened, man,” said Courtney. “It's when you stand up to your fear, that's what makes all the difference.”

Mr Cleat sniffed and turned away, but John said,
“You'd better listen. Lucy and I think we know what's been happening.”

“You mean there's a logical explanation for all of this?”

“Well, there's an explanation, but it isn't exactly logical. We've still got lots of work to do, lots of research to do.”

“I hope you know what you're up against.”

“I don't,” said John. “But I think I'm just about to find out.”

That evening he phoned his father from Uncle Robin's house and told him that he was spending another night away.

“Is there something wrong, son? You're not in trouble?”

“I'm fine, Dad. I'm just making new friends.”

“You'll be back tomorrow, though? Your mum's missing you.”