Page 36 of Crazy Spooky Love
“Do you really think you need to tell me that? I’ve been here since 1910. Believe me, if there was a way I could leave this house I’d have found it by now.”
“So…you want me to arrange a cricket match…in thegarden…for you to watch through the window?” I speak slowly, saying the words at the same time I form the thoughts. My voice takes on Aussie-style upward inflection, mainly because I can’t imagine any of the people I know making a decent fist of playing cricket. My mother? Marina? Artie? Oh my God, no…notme?
Thankfully, Douglas’s laugh is enough to convince me that I haven’t quite grasped the idea.
“God no, how infernally dull would that be?”
I’m unoffended by his derision. He doesn’t know the half of it. If he’s any fan of cricket at all, watching my nearest and dearest attempt to bat, bowl, or field would be enough to make any self-respecting cricket fan set fire to the stumps in protest.
“I want a television set. A color one, like there used to be when Donovan’s father lived here.”
“I don’t think they even make black-and-white ones anymore,” I say, for the most part relieved I don’t need to buy a cricket jumper and then stalled by the logistics of installing a TV here. I’m not technical, but I’m guessing that you don’t just plug it in and the picture appears, and it’s a sure fact that Scarborough House doesn’t have a Sky dish. I make a note to check out the aerial situation on the roof when I leave.
“Let me have a think for a couple of days,” I say. “I can’t promise, but I’ll try.”
Douglas pushes himself off the doorframe and nods. “Jolly good, then. Until the next time, Melody.” He inclines his head and saunters away, leaving me with the strong impression that his lips are sealed until such a time as he’s able to hear thethwackof leather against willow. Or is it beech? And when would you ever use the wordthwackin any other circumstance? God, I hope Artie is a cricket fan, but somehow I doubtit.
“Is Isaac around?” I call out before Douglas disappears.
His gaze flickers toward the slender staircase that leads up toward the attic. “He’s usually up there brooding.”
There is a weariness behind Douglas’s eternally youthful voice, and I suddenly feel desperately sorry for him being trapped here forall of these years. He died way back in 1910 and he’s remained stuck here ever since, unable to communicate with any of the various inhabitants of Scarborough House until Isaac’s ghostly arrival in 1968, followed swiftly by Lloyd gate-crashing the party in 1971. Douglas is, or was, so very young when one of his brothers, quite literally, stabbed him in the back and let him plunge down the staircase to his death. I wonder if he ever knew the agonies and ecstasies of falling in love, if he had serious girlfriends. At twenty-one he probably didn’t die a virgin, but I wonder if he ever got to make love. I hope so. He seems to me to be a man who would have been easy to love and who would have loved generously in return. God, if all the guy wants is to watch the sodding test match, I’m going to make sure he gets his wish, even if I have to climb on the roof and twiddle with the bloody aerial myself.
“Isaac?”
The paint is peeling on the blue door at the top of the attic stairs, and it creaks on its hinges when I push it open.
“Isaac?” I call again, a little louder this time as I step inside the room, squinting because the curtains are drawn over the small eaves window. They’re deep blood red, and the sunlight straining to break through behind them seeps the whole room in a warm rose glow. It reminds me of a scene from a low-rent movie where they bathe a place in red lights to summon the spirits. It’s airless up here, really stuffy. I can’t see Isaac, so I cross to the window set into the sloping roof and reach out to open the curtains.
“I prefer them closed.”
I swing around and spy Isaac sitting in an armchair, an open book on his lap. It’s a mass of eaves and supporting struts up here; I hadn’t noticed him tucked away behind there.
“What are you reading?” I ask, hoping that a spot of general chitchat might oil the wheels a bit.
He holds the book up for my inspection. Jackie Collins,Hollywood Wives.
Well, that was unexpected.
“I’ve read every book in the building ten times over, child. This is by no means the worst of them.”
A thought strikes me. “I could bring you some new ones, if you like?”
“I thought you were supposed to be getting rid of me, not entertaining me.” He closes the book and lays it to one side. “I prefer thrillers. And perhaps a newspaper.”
I make a mental note to ask Gran for book recommendations; she loves a good thriller, the more scare-your-pants-off the better. Given our unusual ability, us Bittersweet women are less easy to scare than most so we have to steal our thrills where we can.
“I want to help you, Isaac, and if for now that just means a couple of the latest thrillers, then so be it. We’ll get to the bigger stuff along the way.”
“I presume you mean who killed Douglas,” he says cutting keenly to the point. “I’ll tell you something, Melody. I think the murder weapon is still hidden somewhere in this house.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because neither Lloyd nor I left the house on the days following the discovery of Douglas’s body, and it’s a well-known fact that murderers like to keep trophies, mementos of their kill.”
“Right,” I say slowly, backtracking on my thoughts about bringing Isaac a fresh stock of gruesome novels. Maybe I’ll throw a few light romances in there too. “But surely the house was thoroughly searched?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “It was 1910. They searched it, of course, but policing today is very different to how it was back then. Forensics were a long way off.” He has a point. I’ve watched enough reruns ofCSI: Miamito know that forensics are an essential part of any modern murder case.
