Then he looked back down at his desk. At the stack of deeds, and the list of names he had written on the A4 pad beside them. And the dates he had obtained from DeadArchives.com/uk. The dates of their births and their deaths.

Sir Brangwyn De Glossope had died at the age of thirty-nine. Not one of the past owners of this house, subsequently, had ever reached their fortieth birthday, except for the Rothbergs, neither of whose lives had been much worth living past it.

Shit. He felt cold suddenly, and shivered. He would be forty himself, in just over a week’s time.

He stared out of the window. All the warmth and colour seemed to have faded from this glorious afternoon, like a photograph that had been left in direct sunlight for too many years. Then, as he looked down towards the lake, he saw Jade and Phoebe standing at the edge of the water, looking playful and happy, throwing something – bread perhaps – to the ducks.

Exactly as he had seen them earlier, when Jade had been out having her riding lesson and Phoebe had been at home with her parents.

48

Sunday, 20 September

‘I found some interesting stuff on the internet about ley lines, Ols,’ Caro said, out of the blue. Having put the roast in the oven, they were strolling around the lake, watching two ducks waddling across the little island, through the fronds of the willow tree. A solitary coot, with its shiny black body, white beak and ungainly legs like hinged stilts, hurried urgently through the long grass in front of them and into the murky water, as if it was late for a meeting.

Ollie’s arm was round her waist. It was late Sunday morning and the weather was on the turn. The sky was overcast and heavy rain was forecast for the afternoon; gales were expected over-night. The Indian summer had come to an abrupt end and there was a chill in the air. Autumn was arriving today. A flock of migrating birds winged by, high overhead.

‘Ley lines?’ Ollie replied, distractedly. He was finding it hard to think clearly about anything. He’d barely slept during the night, fretting about Cholmondley and Bhattacharya, his mental state and the mounting costs of making this place habitable. He’d gambled on building his new business sufficiently during the course of the next twelve months to be able to cope with the bills.

Another thing was worrying him, too. He’d gone for an early-morning run up to the top of the hill again, and this time he’d only got a very short distance up it before having to sit down to get his breath back. What the hell had happened to his fitness and stamina – had the house sapped that, too? It had taken every ounce of his strength and determination to get to the summit, where he’d had to sit down again, gasping, struggling to find the energy to make it back to the house.

‘A client a few weeks ago asked me about them,’ Caro replied. ‘I just remembered last night. He was buying a cottage and I had to do a search to make sure it wasn’t on any ley lines.’

‘Remind me what they are?’

‘Historic lines of alignment – dead straight lines crisscrossing the whole country. A lot of ancient monuments, like churches, are built along them. No one knows exactly what they are – there are theories about them being underground water passages or metal seams. There’s been a ton of stuff written about them – and apparently where there are two intersecting ley lines you can get all kinds of electro-magnetic disturbances. In what I’ve read so far, quite a few supposedly haunted houses have been built on these intersections.’

‘What about this place?’ Ollie asked.

‘I’ve been googling maps of Sussex. It looks like we might be, but I can’t be sure, I’d need to do some more research.’

‘And if it turns out we are, what do we do – jack the house up on wheels and move it?’

She smiled, thinly. ‘Apparently there are ways of dispersing the energy by lancing the ley lines, literally sticking some rods along them – a bit like acupuncture on a huge scale.’

Ollie shrugged. ‘Sounds weird, but I’m happy to try anything.’

‘Have a read up about them.’

‘I will.’

As they walked back towards the house, music was pounding out of Jade’s bedroom window. They could see figures jumping up and down. Jade, Phoebe and Ruari.

‘What are they doing?’ Ollie said. ‘Aerobics?’

‘She’s making another music video – she wants to project it on the wall at her party next week. But . . .’ Caro hesitated.

‘But?’ he quizzed.

‘I don’t know, Ols. Should we risk having a party with all that’s happening at the moment? I’ve been feeling uneasy as it is about having had Phoebe staying overnight, and even Ruari coming today. I’m not sure we should have any visitors until we sort out whatever’s going on here. I think we ought to go out to dinner on your fortieth rather than invite people to the house.’

He fell silent for some moments at the mention of his fortieth. Remembering what he had read and discovered yesterday.

‘We can’t start living in fear, darling, w—’

‘We can’t start living in fear? I’ve got news for you – I am living in bloody fear. I used to love leaving work because that meant I’d soon be seeing you, seeing your face, spending the evening with you. Now I’m scared. Every mile I cover in the car takes me nearer this house and sometimes I just want to turn round and go straight back into Brighton.’

‘Tomorrow night it’s going to get sorted, darling. Whatever stuff is going on here, we’ll get it cleared.’

‘By ghostbuster Benedict Cutler. Bell, book and candle, eh? Just so long as he doesn’t make Jade’s head rotate three hundred and sixty degrees like in The Exorcist. Because that’s what he is really, isn’t he? An exorcist?’

Ollie smiled. ‘From the sound of him that’s not a title he’d want to use.’

‘But it’s what we need here, in reality, isn’t it? To make this place safe, normal. A ghostbuster.’

The two of them had always had an open and frank relationship. No secrets. They always told each other everything. Ollie felt bad, now, keeping back what he’d found out about the past history of Cold Hill House. The exorcisms that had failed to work. The clergymen who’d refused to come to the house.

Almost none of the past occupants reaching their fortieth birthdays.

A sudden movement caught his eye in an upstairs window.

Caro looked at him in panic. ‘Did you see that?’

‘Not clearly – what was it?’ He stared at the window. ‘What did you see?’

‘People – people up there looking at us.’ She pointed up at the tiny window just below the eaves that he’d hardly noticed before, above which was a strip of rusted, broken guttering.

‘Probably the kids.’

Her face a mask of unease, Caro pointed up at Jade’s bedroom. All three children were jumping up, arms crossed in the air, doing a crazy dance to some music. ‘They’re all in there, Ols. There’s people in the house.’

‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘Keep watching.’ He sprinted to the house, went in through the atrium without removing his wellingtons, then clumped up the stairs to the landing, looking wildly up and down it. He went into the blue bedroom, but it was empty, and then into the yellow bedroom and through into the bathroom.

No one.

And, he realized, the windows in both the yellow and blue room were much bigger than the one Caro had been pointing at.

So which was it?

He could see her down on the lawn, still looking up, and hurried back down to her.

‘Did you see anyone?’ she asked.

‘No. Where exactly was it you saw them?’

She pointed again at the tiny window. ‘There,’ she said. ‘I saw them there.’