THE NIGHTMARE STONE Page 2

  'I don't know what to say. The mortgage needs paying.'

  'Nothing much to say. Forget it, eh? I'm on holiday for a week. I'm looking forward to spending time with you and Sophie for the first time in ages, so I'll worry about the office when I have to.'

  There were calls over the weekend – plenty of calls. John ignored them until his mobile became a constant background noise. Eventually he responded and grudgingly agreed to look over some changes that needed to be actioned by Monday. Sunday afternoon was spent online sorting things out whilst Emma and Sophie packed the suitcases in their bedroom. He drifted downstairs to get a coffee and leaned against the work surface, mulling things over.

  It was never supposed to be like this, he thought. I loved my job. Loved what I did. Then I followed the money and went for the big firm. Big mistake, more like.

  John had left the small architects' office in Oxford three years before. He had been head-hunted by a prestigious London company, lured with promises of freedom to work how he wanted, to pick from the best contracts; to be the bright young thing, the rising star. He commuted willingly. Initially it was exciting, genuinely challenging and everything he could have hoped for.

  Then Lehman Brothers collapsed and the bottom fell out of the building sector. No more blue chip contracts. No more high rise glass towers thrusting up to the sky. His firm had over-reached and there was a price to pay. He worked longer hours and travelled further afield as they scraped around for new contracts. He had even contacted his old partners in Oxford. That had been a difficult call; they had not been pleased when he had left them. He winced at the thought of the coldness in his former colleague's voice when he had enquired if there was any chance of him returning.

  'Any chance? No. None at all. We had to move on as well, John. Frankly, mate, you made your bed.'

  So here he was. It had been a miserable winter. The cold snap had gone on and on. Work had been even harder to come by. Architects were expensive and he had just avoided redundancy in the last cost-cutting round. There was even more to do for those left. He had just driven back from Newcastle after five days there, working on a new local government project. Not exactly cutting edge stuff. The budget was pitiful and the specification made him cringe. Yet it was work, as Emma said. It paid the mortgage.

  This holiday was a crazy last minute decision. He had put his foot down for once, told his boss that he needed a week away. They had found a cheap deal and had booked it just a few days ago. Sophie could really do with the break as well. She needed to get away from things for a while. She had not been so well recently. The seizures had been coming more frequently. Kids at school were calling her names. John pushed down the anger that rose up in him.

  Fucking epilepsy. What a curse it was. His mother, his brother and then Sophie. Somewhere in the family tree was a rotten core, he thought bitterly. A rotten stinking cursed core. No wonder he and Emma had pushed away any thought of more children after Sophie was diagnosed. They did not dare risk it happening again. Just knowing it might was enough, even if the chance was small. He remembered the patronising tone of the specialist when he was asked if further children would develop the condition.

  'Unlikely. Anyway, modern drugs are so good these days, it hardly seems worth worrying about.'

  Except it was worth worrying about. So there had never been another child, no kid brother or sister for Sophie. Just the three of them and an empty fourth bedroom.

  John's gaze wandered around the kitchen. A piece of pink paper lay on the window ledge. At first he did not recognise what it was. Then it came back to him. It was the lottery ticket he had bought on a whim on his journey back from Newcastle. There were three lines, the usual mix of numbers plucked from nowhere. Except he had not felt that the numbers were random. He remembered standing at the counter. His pen had quickly filled in the circles for the first two lines, a few quick movements and they were done. He had not planned to fill in another line but something seemed to nag at him, a little voice that scratched at his brain.

  Do another line, the voice had said. Just one more.

  Why not, he had thought. It's only another pound.

  His pen hovered over the pink slip and then the numbers were done, almost as if they had been waiting to come out. He had paid for the petrol, a sandwich and a drink, then handed over the slip. The ticket had been stuffed into his wallet along with the receipt. When he got home, it was dropped next to the other bits of discarded junk that littered the window ledge.

  John picked the ticket up, staring at the numbers. Random, no pattern. No favourites or birthdays, no superstitious combinations. He took out his phone and searched for yesterday's draw. He quickly scanned over the numbers on the first line. One matched. The second line nothing. Then he worked along the third line. A match, then another. Then a third. Ten pounds would do. The fourth was there as well; John's stomach tightened. He looked his phone's screen and then back down at the ticket.

  Again and again, he looked up and down. The two remaining numbers matched. All six numbers the same as those on his phone. John sat down heavily. He suddenly felt sick.

  He sat and stared at the screen, his vision blurring, his heart pounding. For no reason he could ever explain, there was no excitement. No sudden rush of joy. No clarified moment of a future without financial constraints. Instead, John just sat in silence, feeling a steady quickening pulse at his temple. It was like he was looking down a long narrowing tube, blurred and shifting. At the end of the tube was his phone and on the screen were six numbers

  4 12 20 24 37 42

  and those six numbers seemed to flow over again and again

  4 12 20 24 37 42

  until the nausea swam up from John's stomach. Emma came downstairs, the packing finished. Sophie was behind her, all laughter and chatter. They stared at him as he sat there.

  'John?' asked Emma. 'What is it?'

  John did not speak. He just held out the ticket and his phone. Emma took both from him. Her face was full of confusion. John smiled at her and pointed at the ticket.

  'Check the third line.'

  Slowly, Emma read the numbers, then the screen. Then the numbers again. John still did not speak. What was there to say?

  ***

  They knew where and when he had bought the ticket. They offered him congratulations and explained that he would have to travel to London to collect the cheque. John asked if it could wait a week. Of course, the man on the phone said, sounding bemused. Whenever you're ready. There would be champagne and a photographer if he wanted (no thanks, John had said. Just the cheque. Then he apologised for sounding so mercenary) and lots of financial advice to help him manage the money. Any other questions, the man had said after what seemed like an age. I don't think so, John replied. I can't think of any at the moment.

  Then after John put down the phone, the three of them just stood in the living room for a few moments. Then Sophie started to dance around the room, laughing. The laughing got louder until it turned into shouting and screaming. It went on for a long time.

  The exact amount got lost in the shorthand. It was £7,996,123 rounded up to nearly eight million pounds. Just under eight million, about eight million. Eight sodding million. It flowed easily off the tongue. John tried to understand how much money it actually was. They spent an hour breaking it down into so many thousands, so many hundreds. The number of days it would take to get rid of it all if he blew a thousand pounds a day. John worked out that it would be more than twenty years of steady spending, day after day, without even taking into account interest on investments. Then John started to understand just how much everything was going to change.

  THREE

  So the money was deposited in their new account and their lives carried on, as lives do. Except it was all different now. They were suddenly rich. Not just wealthy, or well off, or comfortable. They were properly rich with the potential to do pretty much whatever they wanted to do. Their skiing holiday had been fun but surreal. They spent every spare moment talking about the money; what they would buy, where they could visit, and mainly about where they would live. With eight million pounds in the bank, the family home in the east of Oxford suddenly seemed a little bit claustrophobic.

  Part of John wanted to stay. They had bought the house ten years before, when Sophie was a toddler. She had suffered her first seizure there. When they had brought her back to the house from the hospital, it had been their haven – bashed around the edges, not quite fully decorated. Perfectly different from the sterile cream world of the hospital with its echoing corridors and conversations about life-long illness. They had created something unique over the years, a cosy semi-detached world full of twenty years' worth of mainly good memories. They had friends locally, they were close to amenities. It was their home.

  But both of them had always wanted more. John knew that this was his chance to buy somewhere truly spectacular. A house that he could actually create, not just draw on a computer then erase it because it would never become a reality. Emma could finally have her own gardens. She had trained as a horticulturist before Sophie was born. Her passion was plants. But a career was impossible with a sick child, and after so long away from it she had struggled to find a way back in. Not so many people were considering garden makeovers when they could hardly afford to put fuel in their cars.

  Sophie was in total agreement about a move. She asked if she could now go to a different school, perhaps one where she would be judged more for what she could do, than for the seizures that plagued her most weeks.

  First came the practicalities. John contacted his boss and tendered his resignation with immediate effect. His contract stipulated three months' notice. He completed his outstanding work and wrote a cheque to cover the balance of his notice period. He said
goodbye to his colleagues and walked away without a backward glance.

  They told their closest friends; they offered to pay off the mortgages of those they cared for the most. A no-strings attached one-off windfall to change their lives as well. Emma had one older brother, Stuart. He was married with two children and worked as a GP in Oxford. He had been John's best friend at university; John had met Emma through Stu.

  It was John who called to let him know about their win, told him that if he wanted that new Porsche he'd always dreamed of...well, mate, you can. And by the way, why not buy two? They met up for a celebratory meal. Sophie played with Stu's kids whilst they drank wine and laughed at the crazy bloody weirdness of it all.

  John didn't have to call his family because they were all dead. In 1979, when John was eight and his brother Adam was twelve, there had been a fire. On their mother's birthday, the two boys had got up early to make her a special surprise breakfast. It was all planned; they would creep down and make her toast and tea. Her presents had been wrapped days before – a pair of gloves and a book. Their father had taken them shopping. It did not matter that he paid for the gifts. The children were excited because it was things they knew she wanted.

  They put the bread in the toaster and boiled the kettle, just as they had been shown. If they had just done those things, then maybe there would have been no fire. If Adam had not convinced John that he could light the grill and cook bacon for their mother, then perhaps the tea towel next to the oven would not have caught fire, would not have disappeared in a cloud of black choking smoke that filled the kitchen in seconds.

  And if Adam had not suffered one of his seizures just as the smoke engulfed them then he would perhaps have a family to tell about his lottery win. If the damned curse of epilepsy had not struck just at that moment, then his parents might be grandparents. His brother might be an uncle. John might have nieces and nephews to love and cherish as they moved on through life.

  John had pulled at his brother as he lay convulsing on the kitchen floor but the smoke had stung his eyes and soaked into his lungs. He had staggered away towards the kitchen door calling for his family, over and over. Even now, thirty years later, John never went to bed without checking that the kitchen door key was still hanging free in its lock, because that had saved his life. He had fumbled through the deadly smog and unlocked the door, then he had fallen out into the garden choking and coughing. By the time the fire brigade arrived (called by the neighbours who were already awake and up) John was vomiting up black sooty bile as he lay sprawled on the grass.

  John had gone to live with his father's parents after the fire. They were kind and loving. They poured their grief into raising him and gave him everything that an orphaned boy could want. They guided him through school and teenage years; they wiped away tears as they saw him off to university and they were always there when he needed them. But they were not his parents. The hole in John's heart had shrunk slowly over they years, but it was still there, still raw and painful. His grandparents were dead now also. He did not know any other family, so for John the money was his alone.

  Once they had satisfied themselves that they had helped family, friends and other causes, they concentrated on the most important question - the house they would buy.

  They registered with local agents, quietly suggesting a budget of up to three million pounds. That sort of number gets you more than a cup of coffee and a welcoming smile. There were promises of early notification of anything that might be suitable. They pored over maps of the area, argued over where was possible and where was not, and enjoyed the whole process, safe in the knowledge that they were cash buyers with no time frame; the ultimate window shopping experience for the whole family.

  They looked at a dozen old properties, all lovely in their own way, but none of them stole their hearts and drew them in. For the money they were going to spend, this had to be the one. The house where they would live for the rest of their lives. Emma asked John if he wanted to find a plot of land and start from scratch, just as he had spoken about for years. He dug out all the plans and sketches he had made, all the way back to his university days. They smiled at the exuberant grandeur of some of the designs, but deep down John was unconvinced. Now that he had the means, he no longer had the desire.

  After so many years imagining that one day he would live in a house that he had designed, he realised that the dream was more enjoyable than the reality. He told Emma and she understood. Deep down, the idea of sitting down with a blank screen to design a house for his family seemed too much to deal with; it just felt too much like the work from which he had just walked away.

  So they agreed it needed to be a period property, a house with character that they could bring back to life. It would need a lot of work, of course, and probably need extending to incorporate their wishes. They spoke about home cinemas and gyms and swimming pools. John researched retractable dwellings that disappeared back under the lawn. He put that idea to bed when Emma asked if he wanted a white cat and world domination to go with it.

  It was a Saturday when the envelope arrived through the letterbox. It was brown and A4 size, no franking mark. Just a first class stamp and a hand written address. John had opened it after he already looked at an offer from Sky and two unsuitable properties from a particularly pushy agent.

  A brochure slid out of the envelope, glossy and pristine. Sycamores, the literature stated. A Victorian house of rare size and potential, on the market for offers around two million pounds. He stood still, staring at the large picture on the first page. He took in the image of the house. He read the address, realised its location. Slowly, with growing anticipation, John opened the brochure. There were more pictures of the grounds, a floor plan. He scanned it twice more before calling Emma. He handed it to her.

  'I think we've found it,' he said.

  FOUR

  It was unusually hot and dry. It felt more like the bleached-out middle of July than the coolness of late April. They were sat out in the garden, enjoying the feel of the sun on their skin. John called the estate agent's number. He asked for his usual contact who took the call with indecent haste.

  'Mr Harris,' said an eager voice. 'How are you today?'

  'I'm very well, Richard. Yourself?'

  'Likewise. What can I do for you?'

  'This property in Sandford-on-Thames. I'd like to arrange a visit please.'

  There was a pause at the other end. John heard tapping on a keyboard. When the agent spoke there was obvious confusion in his voice.

  'I...I'm sorry, Mr Harris. I can't see that we've sent you those details yet...are we talking about Sycamores?'

  'We are, Richard,' replied John, looking again at the house name on the brochure. 'It looks like it might have potential.'

  'When did you say you received the brochure?'

  'About an hour ago. Is there a problem?'

  The agent tapped away at his keyboard again.

  'No, not at all. I just can't quite see how you've received the brochure so quickly. The literature has only just been delivered to the office here, and I didn't think we had contacted any possible buyers yet. I'm sorry to sound so vague, Mr Harris. You've just caught me out a bit.'

  'Maybe someone else in the office has been extra efficient this week.'

  'Maybe.'

  'Anyway, regardless of who sent it, Emma and I would love to take a look. Can we get that arranged?'

  'Of course. You were top of the list to be told about it, anyway. It's a wonderful old place. The grounds are incredible. There's work to be done but there's enormous potential, as you say. I'll need to speak to the owner, a Mrs Simpson. She's a very elderly lady.' He chuckled nervously. 'A bit fierce, actually. She's put me in my place a few times already. I'll call her straight away and let you know. When were you thinking of visiting the property?'

  John smiled at Emma and Sophie.

  'Today would be good.'

  ***

  John had been to Sandford-on-Thames once before. When he was working locally he had visited a house next to the church that was looking to build a modern extension. The combination of Cotswold stone and post-industrial steel had scared the good folk of the village half to death and the idea had never got beyond the initial planning phase. He knew there was a lovely pub down by the river so they drove past Sycamores first before carrying on down the lane to the King's Arms.