Authors: Simon Cheshire
On Saturday night, an hour before the start of the Greenhill’s Halloween Ball, my mum and dad seemed almost as cheerful and chirpy as they did on the day we moved in. Mum was wearing a black dress she’d bought specially for the occasion. Dad had dug out his old grey suit to wear, but Mum had made him give it to a charity shop and buy a new one. He came home with a suit that was almost identical to the old one.
Mum had responded to the line on the invitation that said ‘Fancy Dress Optional, But Encouraged’ by adding a feathered black eye mask to her dress and leaving it at that. Dad spiked his hair, painted his face black and white and said he was a rock star I’d never heard of.
I wore the zombie outfit I’d used at a school party the previous year. I had a pair of trousers with ragged edges, a shirt covered in fake gore, and a
jacket with bullet holes and streams of painted blood down the back. I darkened round my eyes and put a scar across my cheek. I looked pretty good.
Cars began to fill up Priory Mews, as well as the driveway to Bierce Priory itself, about five minutes before eight o’clock. Most of them were huge and freshly cleaned. They were parked in any and every space large enough to accommodate them, and disgorged a steady stream of werewolves, mummies, pirates, monsters, witches and ghosts, as well as a scattering of dinner suits and ball gowns.
We came out of the house to find a Range Rover blocking our drive, and a pair of Hyundai iX35s pulled up on to the grass in front of our garden fence.
“Polite,” I sneered.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Mum, to whom it would normally have mattered enormously.
It was a bitterly cold evening, the chilliest of the year so far. There was very little cloud, and the stars surrounded a bright and almost full moon.
Over at No. 1, the Daltons called goodnight to their babysitter and followed us across the road. I felt an odd shudder of cold as I stepped on to the gravel driveway of Bierce Priory. I realized it was the first
time I’d actually been down their drive towards the house. Parked at the far end were a couple of large vans that had arrived earlier in the day filled with catering equipment and supplies. Mum had watched it all from our front window, keeping up a running commentary on whatever was coming and going.
The ball was being held in the long, ground-floor art-deco annexe that jutted out from the left-hand side of the main house. A shifting pattern of coloured light swirled from inside, throwing the curved and intricate shapes of the tall windows into silhouette. The rest of the house was in darkness. It towered above us, angular and brooding. Any sensation I felt of being watched was purely my own nerves and paranoia.
Three wide, semicircular stone steps led up to a pair of patio doors in the side of the annexe. They were ajar, and opened wide as we approached.
“Richard, Ellen, welcome,” said Caroline Greenhill. “Hello, Sam, I know Emma’s been looking forward to having you over.” Caroline was dressed as a sorceress, in a scarlet dress with trails of glitter. A pair of amber contact lenses made her eyes piercing and serpentine.
“Didn’t know whether we should bring a bottle,” said Mum.
Caroline laughed. “Oh, no no no, that’s fine.” She spotted the Daltons behind us. “Oh, hello! Lovely to see you, do come in.”
We went inside, into the warm fog of chatter, music and the aromas of food and wine. The annexe was one enormous room, with a polished wood floor and big lights suspended from the ceiling, designed to match the art-deco style of their surroundings. To one end was a low stage, on which a six-piece band in dinner jackets and bow ties plucked swing and jazz classics. Half a dozen couples were already dancing, one or two doing proper jive steps.
I had to admit, this was the most impressive social event I’d ever been to in my life.
“Ooh, buffet,” said Dad, pointing to the tables at the other end of the room.
Mum made a grab for the Daltons, obviously self-conscious that she knew almost nobody here. “This is lovely, isn’t it?” she said to Susan Dalton.
“Yes,” smiled Susan.
“Susan and I met at one of these balls,” said Michael Dalton.
“Did you leave the babysitter your mobile number?” Susan asked him. He paused, then headed back to the driveway.
I brushed nervously at the sleeves of my zombie outfit. I was acutely aware of knowing almost nobody, too. Where was—?
“Boo!”
I almost let out a yell. Emma was suddenly beside me, nearly doubled up with mirth.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” she giggled. “Did I scare you?”
“Nooo,” I said, my heart racing. “Well, yes.”
She cackled. “It’s the Halloween Ball, I guess you deserve a good scare!”
She was in a vampire costume. A long black wig reached halfway down her back, and her eyes were heavily made up in a sharp batwing shape. Between blood-red lips, she’d painted her teeth to make them look like fangs.
“You look fabulous,” I blurted.
“Thank you,” she beamed. “You look utterly gross, too.”
We laughed. “Do you want a drink?” she said. “There’s supposed to be a couple of waiters, but I think they’re all busy with the food at the moment.”
She sidled up to me. My heart raced again. “Mum says I can have wine. She thinks I wait for her permission. Want some?”
“I’m OK at the moment,” I said.
“Okey dokey,” she said. She twirled on the spot and skipped away, heading for the lines of wine and spirits bottles near the buffet table.
There must have been close to a hundred people in the room. I caught a glimpse of Chief Constable Leonard Greenhill, whom I recognized from that TV news report. He’d come as a convict, in baggy shirt and trousers covered in arrows and a prisoner number stitched to his chest. He was chatting with three men who each mirrored his humourless expression, and who I assumed were fellow cops. Around me was a whirl of talk, laughter and high-society networking, all of which left me to my own devices.
“Sam!” said Emma. She returned holding a large glass of red wine in one hand, and Byron Greenhill’s sleeve in the other. “This is my dad!”
His costume consisted of a bloodstained white lab coat, and a pair of comedy goggle-eyed glasses. He took them off and popped them into the pocket of his lab coat. His real eyes were perfectly round, the
pupils large and dark. He had a slightly bulbous face, with a pink, fleshy jaw that was smooth and buttery, and a raised, skin-coloured mole beside his mouth that seemed to give his face a permanent smirk. I understood what Jo’s dad had meant when he’d said that Byron Greenhill gave some people the creeps.
He spoke with the same swagger as his father Ken, the same tone of assumed superiority. “I’ve been hearing a lot about you, Sam,” he said.
I tried to think of something witty to say, but failed completely.
“He’s only just got back from… Where was it?” said Emma.
“Prague.” He gazed at me levelly. “Conference. Well, nice to meet you, young man.”
I felt as if I’d been dismissed, like a fly being swatted to one side. Byron Greenhill’s attention was already elsewhere, zoning in on a small group of women dressed as witches.
“Those are all governors of our school,” whispered Emma. Her breath was scented with the red wine. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a glass of virgin’s blood?”
“Could I, umm, use your loo?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding to a small door beside the buffet table. “Through there.”
“Thanks.”
As I drew level with the buffet table, I glanced back around the room. I spotted Ken Greenhill for the first time, bobbing gently in time to the music, in the company of the Giffords from No. 2. Mum had attached herself to a circle of business types and was laughing too loudly. Dad was standing beside the band, two young women hanging off his every word. He was tapping his foot and nodding his head, and very clearly telling them about his glittering career in showbiz. The two young women kept looking at each other.
Nobody was looking my way. Smoothly, I took a tall wine glass from the table and went through the door Emma had indicated.
Beyond was a short corridor. On the left were two further doors, each with a sign written in black marker pen on an A4 sheet: ‘Gents’ and ‘Ladies’. At the end of the corridor was another door, which must have led into the main part of the house. I quickly went over to it.
I was hunting for evidence, of course, but exactly what that evidence might amount to, or where it
might be, I didn’t know. I was planning on playing it by ear.
There was a keypad built into the jamb, level with the handle. On the inner parts of the entire frame, I could see the edges of metal reinforcements. A cold feeling began to creep down my spine. This was more than ordinary security. This was hardly the sort of thing you expected to find inside someone’s
home
. Unless that someone had plenty to hide.
There was a scuffling sound behind me, and I quickly ducked into the Gents. I heard the laughing chatter of two female voices, and the bumping of the Ladies door.
The temporary Gents was a large domestic shower room, with a separate toilet cubicle built into the corner. In here, the noise of the band and the people sounded hollow and distant, and the glare of the overhead light threw hard shadows across the tiled floor.
I placed the wine glass beside the hand basin. Out of the pocket of my jacket I took two lunchbox cartons of orange juice I’d brought from home. I tore the plastic straw from one of them, pierced both cartons and emptied the contents into the wine glass. The orange juice reached the rim of the glass,
and I bent down to slurp it back a little. I dumped the cartons in the little pedal bin under the basin.
It would have looked odd if I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything. I had planned, before leaving home, that this glass was going to stay in my hand for the duration of the party. I wouldn’t put it down, not for a second. I would sip it occasionally, and claim it was one of those things that’s made with orange juice – what was it called? A spritzer? No, a Buck’s Fizz.
If Dr Caroline Greenhill had wanted me to attend her surgery, then she’d been planning to drug me just like the rest of Priory Mews. There was no way I was going to let anyone slip me dope in a crustless sandwich or a tumbler of lemonade. I wasn’t going to fall for that.
I wasn’t going to get into the main part of the house either. Not with that code-locked door there.
I took a deep breath, had a sip of orange juice, and strode back out into the main room with my glass firmly in my hand. The band was kicking up the tempo. Most of the guests were dancing, the others watching them. Werewolves and vampires, monsters and ghouls, spectres and aliens, swaying and
waltzing and dad-dancing. The early atmosphere of stylish formality had loosened a little.
Emma found me and we danced, too, awkwardly. My glass stayed in my hand. Emma’s glass stayed in hers. She’d pause here and there to slug some red wine back. There was raucous applause when the band finished a song and announced they’d be taking a short break. Emma and I found a couple of seats, on their own beside one of the annexe’s immensely tall windows.
“This is a beautiful room,” I said, looking up at the ornate details of the high ceiling.
“It’s been in the family for about seventy years,” said Emma. “Just like my grandpop’s jokes.”
I fought back the urge to ask her where she’d been going the previous Sunday night. “Are we the youngest ones here?” I said.
Emma nodded. “By at least a decade.”
“Don’t you get to invite some of your friends?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, it’s Mum and Dad’s thing, really. Anyway, you’re here, you’re my friend. It’s not so much a party, it’s more a sort of mixture of a thank you and a … what’s the word I want? I was going to say bribe, but that’s not right.”
“Bribe?” I said, eyebrows raised.
“No, not bribe. These people are all council leaders, school governors, police officers, Dad’s science guys, Mum’s medical guys, well, both of them’s medical guys.”
She sort of giggled to herself. I thought the wine was starting to go to her head.
“The best and brightest of Hadlington, and beyond,” she continued. “And Mum and Dad like to stay best friends with all of them. Well, why not? If you’re going to have friends, have the best. Anyway, it’s a thank you and a … whatever. For being best friends, and for … carrying on being best friends. You wait until you see the goodie bags everyone gets at the end.”
“There are goodie bags?”
“Ah!” said Emma. “The good news is, yes, there are goodie bags. The bad news is, Mum does them, they’re all named, and the people they want to be bestest, bestest ever BFF buddies get the biggest pressies. I’m afraid the neighbours have to make do with chocolates and the odd bottle or two.”
“Chocolates are nice,” I shrugged.
Many of the guests were standing around with
plates, filling their faces and burying themselves in conversations. Byron and Caroline were working the room, shaking hands and kissing cheeks and sharing light banter – ‘pressing the flesh’ as the politicians put it. A photographer had turned up, presumably from the
Courier
. White flashes popped in the far corner of the room. There’d be a couple of pics in next week’s issue, showing the Greenhills and assorted dignitaries smiling and having fun.
“I’m glad the Daltons didn’t bring their horrible squealing brat,” said Emma.
“I think they got a babysitter.”
“Yeah?” said Emma. “I hope she strangles the little shit.”
I flinched. I assumed that was the wine talking.
Mum and Dad were together, Mum hanging around near the photographer and not being invited to appear in a group shot, Dad standing behind her happily tucking into a plate that was piled high. I was sure that was his third. I caught a trio of nearby vampires eyeing the pair of them, exchanging hushed remarks and sniggering to themselves. A flush of anger welled up inside me.
The band finished pints of beer and hopped back
up on to the stage. The music resumed with a rapid beat from the drummer and a catchy melody from the guy on the electric piano. Dad put down his plate and yanked Mum into a twirling dance that mimicked a waltz so badly that the business types Mum had been talking to earlier all clapped and laughed.