After Midnight
A CRIME SHORT STORY WRITTEN BY ANNE GORING
Was there really something unsettling in the house, something Bella alone could tune in to?
“Why did we say we’d do this, Pete?” Bella said, shivering. “I’ve felt on edge all day. There’s definitely a weird atmosphere in this house. Now, a thunderstorm – and on the stroke of midnight, what happens? The lights go out.”
She held the torch in a trembling hand as he found the fuse box in the cupboard under the stairs.
The lights came back on, accompanied by a crack of thunder that made Bella jump.
Pete backed out of the cupboard and unfolded himself. He grinned.
Dog-sitting for three weeks – it’s a nice place to stay while our own flat is in such a mess.
On cue, the pair of beagles in the kitchen started to howl.
“It’s Albert Armitage, I know it,” Bella cried.
He laughed, hugging her tight.
“You’ve got too much imagination, love. The hounds are only saying that they want a turn round the garden before we go to bed.”
Bert glided through the wall, muttering to himself. These new people were a pair of insensitives.
At least, the chap was. Hide like a rhinoceros, he had. The woman?
Maybe a little more receptive.
It was distressing enough having the owners of his house – his house – being totally unaware of his existence. Well, non-existence. But he did have hopes that he might be more fortunate with this new pair. Otherwise, there were only the blasted animals that he could get any satisfactory response from.
He settled back into his resting place, the oil painting of him in its elaborate frame hanging on the wall in the place where they kept their horseless carriages. He had commissioned it when he was made Chairman of the Board at the Biscuit Factory.
At least the current owners had hung it up. He’d spent a regrettable amount of time wrapped in sacking in the loft.
“A bit of history,” they’d said. “Even if it’s a tad macabre.”
Macabre be damned! Superb picture. It had cost him a fortune: twenty-five guineas, to be precise!
Cecile had adored it. It hung above the fireplace in the front parlour, so she could admire him in his best suit and waistcoat, moustache beautifully tweaked. How elegantly his hair waved. Cecile was fond of smoothing it as she kissed him goodbye each morning.
“Cher Albert,” she would breathe in that husky, accented tone that made his toes tingle, “’ow wonderful you look. I could eat you up.” She would blink her long, dark lashes.
Why don’t you stay and I’ll serve you up for lunch?
Her throaty laugh would follow him down the garden path.
Her voice would linger in his mind all day, so that by six o’clock he could hardly wait to close the factory gates behind him and head for home.
Until that day. That terrible day when he had discovered that he was not the only dish on her menu.
Bella was glad to be out of the house the next morning. Once she’d run Pete to the station, walked the dogs and dawdled over a coffee at the kiosk in the park, she reluctantly drove back.
It had seemed such a relief when Chris, a work colleague of Pete’s, had suggested they move into Sunset View while he and his wife were on a Mediterranean cruise.
“We hate putting the dogs into kennels and we had thought of dog-sitters, but with you having builders in and Bella able to work from home – well, it seems like fate.”
So Bella, who was a freelance commercial artist, had moved her all her stuff into a spare bedroom in the large, detached Victorian villa. It had been a fun afternoon; even the news that a notorious murderer had once lived in the house had seemed interesting rather than scary. Well, it had then.
She’d never met Chris and Rosie before. They were a jolly, middle-aged couple and their dogs were friendly.
Her and Pete’s flat was a chaotic mess after the people upstairs had a flood in the bathroom which had brought down part of their ceiling and created havoc with the electrics.
House- and dog-sitting had seemed a perfect solution.
But now Bella wasn’t so sure. Before she started work, she set up her laptop.
Albert peered over her shoulder.
He liked it when they brought out these weird devices. The people who owned the place used them a lot.
Especially the woman, who wrote novels. The sort Cecile would have enjoyed. Romantic trivia with impossible plots and happy endings.
A picture of himself flashed up on the screen. That horrible one, as he was climbing into the Black Maria. He looked like a frightened rabbit.
He closed his eyes against the giant headline. WIFE MURDERER TO HANG! He longed to scratch away the words.
He hadn’t murdered her!
He was innocent.
But no one had listened then. No one would listen now.
If only he could tell his side of the story. If only he could work this machine to spell out the truth.
With a cry of frustration, he plunged his hands over the woman’s.
Bella froze. For a few moments she felt as though she’d been hit by an attack of flu – shivery, her head spinning.
Then she blinked and it was gone.
She found herself sitting before the laptop reading words that didn’t make any sense.
She hadn’t written this.
I am not a murderer. Her lover did it!
What? The weird sensation came over her again. When she opened her eyes there was more.
She was seeing Billy Finch behind my back.
She snatched her hands from the keyboard, staring at the screen in horror.
Billy Finch? Who on earth was he?
The piece she’d just read was about Albert Armitage and how he’d strangled his wife, thrown her into the canal and told everyone she’d gone to visit her relatives in Dieppe.
She was almost scared to put her fingers back on the keyboard, which was ridiculous. She took a deep, calming breath. Typed in a name.
William Finch turned out to be one of the witnesses in the case. Despite herself, Bella was intrigued.
He was apparently a pillar of the local community. Aged forty-seven, married with three daughters, town councillor, contributor to charitable causes.
He ran two adjoining shops on the high street with his wife. High Class Hats and Finch’s Furniture Depository.
Mrs Armitage, apparently, was a visitor to both establishments.
“A charming lady,” he had told The Daily Packet. “She visited my shop only the morning before the day of her sad demise. She was considering the purchase of a chiffonier in the newest style.
“And, of course, she frequented my wife’s hat shop, being a lady of fashion. How I wish I could have known her wicked husband was about to dispatch her so cruelly. But, alas, none of us has the power to look into the future.”
Behind Bella’s left shoulder boiled a maelstrom of pressure as her fingers plonked on the keys.
Liar! Rogue. Silver-tongued adulterer! Chiffonier be damned.
What you were getting up to with Cecile behind the wardrobes in your shop was not fit to be known among respectable people!
“Who are you?” Bella stammered.
I AM THE WRONGED PARTY.
“You’re… Albert Armitage?” Her voice was a squeak.
Who else?
“But that’s impossible.”
Cecile left me. I came home from work and found her gone with only a note wishing me farewell, because she loved another.
She had taken a suitcase of clothes and the jewels I had given her.
“But how did you know it was this man… Finch?”
I did not know then. Only when I came to this side.
I found that he had strangled her with my best scarf, which he had stolen when he was with her in my house. He kept her in a bedding box until he had the chance to take her to the canal.
“That’s terrible,” Bella murmured.
Could this be happening? Was she having a conversation on her laptop with a ghost? A wronged ghost, at that.
I determined not to move on until the truth be known.
“B-but the note,” Bella stammered.
Didn’t the police believe she had written it herself?
They thought I had forged it. I was so ashamed of her having left me I told everyone she had gone to visit her relatives in Dieppe.
When I confessed she had left me they did not believe me because I had lied about the note.
“And of course there was no fingerprinting or genetics then…”
Everyone thought Billy Finch an honest witness. He told the police he had seen me skulking near the canal when he was on his way to a meeting of the society to aid fallen women, but he lied. I was never there and his testimony hanged me.
“That’s terrible,” Bella said again.
I will not rest until the full truth is known!
“Quite right, too.”
You believe me? Thank you.
“I don’t know what I can do about it.”
Tell the world.
Prove me right.
“I’m not sure…”
But the fire went out of Bella’s fingers. He was gone, leaving her bewildered.
Three weeks later, Albert moodily watched the reunion as Chris and Rosie arrived back from holiday.
He was not at all sure the young woman to whom he’d told his story would do anything about it.
He hadn’t been able to communicate with her since that day. It was as though a curtain had drawn aside for a few moments. Now it had fallen back. She was packed and ready to go home, and the truth would be lost.
Albert hovered near the ceiling in the dining room as they had a boozy welcome-home lunch. The men then flopped on to the sofa in the sitting room, and he followed Rosie and Bella as they drifted into the book-lined room where the novelist woman wrote her romances.
And then, suddenly, they were talking about him.
“Pete said it was my subconscious because I’d been reading about Albert,” Bella said, handing over the printouts. “But it was such a weird experience, I just couldn’t chuck this stuff away.
I know you were thinking of having a go at a crime novel, so I thought the research I did might give you a few ideas.
Rosie riffled through the papers.
“There’s some good stuff here. Thanks. I wonder if he was falsely accused. Food for thought.”
She grinned conspiratorially.
“You know that picture of Albert in the garage? Chris hates it, but I think it’s time we gave it an airing. Albert can stay in my study and provide me with inspiration.
“Want to give me a hand?”
Between them, they hauled the picture into Rosie’s study and propped it against the bookshelves.
“Phew. Weighs a ton,” Rosie said. “A bit grandiose, all that carving round the frame. Not a bad-looking chap, either. Love the whiskers. His expression’s a bit smug, though. Self-satisfied.”
Bella sighed.
“He looked a bit different when he was dragged into the Black Maria.”
“Indeed,” Rosie said, dreamily. “And thereby hangs a tale.”
The party was in full swing.
From his vantage point above the fireplace in the sitting room, Albert watched people laughing and talking as they milled about in their finery. The doors to the garden were open and the group spilled out into the warm evening carrying their drinks.
What a celebration. There’d been some sort of do at the publisher’s, he’d gathered, but this was a private affair to celebrate the new book.
The book about him.
His story had been turned into fiction, of course – and he had to confess that some of the scenes she’d written had caused him to avert his eyes.
However, he had to admit that she’d stirred things up with her interviews on the big screen that hung on the wall, and the small box that stood on the side table. Where disembodied voices spoke his name, time after time.
All that claptrap he put to one side. It was the end result that mattered. And he had to acknowledge that the two women now looking at him as they sipped their champagne had worked a kind of magic.
“I hope he’s pleased,” Bella said. “You’ve hit the bestseller lists. His name’ll be known all over the world.”
“And best of all, they’ve reopened that old case for further investigation.” Rosie said. “How about that?
“I heard this morning that the police detectives have delved into the archives and found the stuff that was saved after the trial.
“All the paperwork, plus the scarf that strangled her and a man’s glove they think the murderer lost when he threw her into the canal.
With all the forensic science stuff they can do today, surely they’ll be able to find out if Albert really did it. Or William Finch. They’re filming it all, apparently, for a documentary.
Bella grinned.
“I get the feeling Albert would be delighted.”
“Do you think he’s still in the house?” Rosie mused.
“Why not? After all those years being ignored, he must be very pleased to be the centre of attention now.”
Little did they know he’d been worrying about moving on.
It was time, he supposed. He’d always thought that having his name cleared would be the end of it. There again, it wasn’t settled just yet.
And this was his house. He had a perfect right to be here. Especially when, from time to time, there were those he could sense acknowledged his presence. And if not, well, there were always that pair of hounds to annoy.
Smirking to himself, he slid from the picture and wafted into the back kitchen where the dogs slumbered peacefully in a patch of sunshine.
Instantly they woke, glared at him, lifted their heads and howled. Loudly.
The laughter and chat paused for a minute before someone dashed in to fuss over the hounds and settle them down.
Satisfied, he went back to the portrait. Yes. This was his home. He was more entitled than any of them to stay here.
And he still had some influence.
Which might come in useful with regard, perhaps, to another volume of sensational crime.
Now there was a thought.
He looked at the two women, now mingling with other guests. Bella was worth his attention. He’d used his influence on her once. Why not try again? During his long sojourn in limbo he’d heard many lurid news items.
He settled comfortably into his portrait. He knew exactly what he would do. He smiled to himself. How very interesting, to look forward from now on instead of backwards.
To anticipate a new career.
Some weeks later, Rosie’s phone rang.
“Hi, Bella. What’s new?”
“I had the oddest dream last night. I suppose it was because when we met for coffee at yours yesterday, we were talking about ideas for a new book.” Bella said. “The dream was clear as a bell. It was about that unsolved murder on the Heath in the 1890s…”
