The House On Nazareth Hill Read online

‘I’d say that shows how long he must have been hiding the strain.’ Oswald gazed into the widow’s wrinkled face, on which age appeared to have redistributed some of the white hair, and tried to penetrate its stoicism. ‘Maybe if I’d looked in more often I might have noticed something.’

  ‘I don’t see how when I never did.’

  ‘He must have been determined not to worry you. What I’m driving at, you shouldn’t have to be responsible for anything he kept from you.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I feel responsible for not seeing how he was going?’

  ‘Feel, well, none of us can help what we feel. But be, I don’t think so in your case. Responsibility, now,’ Oswald said with sudden inspiration, ‘I’d lay that at the door of whoever burgled this house.’

  ‘Your firm aren’t going to care who, are they? Only what they have to pay.’

  ‘That rather is the nature of the business, I’ll admit.’

  ‘And how much that’ll be is up to this man they’re sending from Manchester to see what Stan didn’t insure.’

  ‘I should have asked Stan or you to let me look everything over.’

  That’s what I intend to do in future if my clients will allow me.’ Bracing himself with a breath which he hoped wasn’t noticeable, Oswald said ‘I keep thinking of a case like yours.’

  ‘God preserve whoever it was.’

  ‘Amen,’ said Oswald, and not much less awkwardly, ‘What the survivor did when she knew the adjuster was coming, I only mention this, she took all the jewellery that hadn’t been stolen, you see the similarity to your situation, and some other, other items, and left them with a friend, so that when our chap, not ours, I should say, made the valuation she, seemed to have, been—’ His breath ran out with a croak, and his nostrils itched with the breath he used to say ‘Fully insured.’

  The silence struck him as exposing the words for an unreasonable length of time before Betty Raistrick said ‘What was her name?’

  ‘You’ll pardon me if I can’t give that out.’

  ‘But you’re telling me she got what she asked for.’

  ‘That was my point, exactly. She wasn’t actually a client of mine. You’ll appreciate I heard about her off the record.’ The fibs Oswald had expected the widow to welcome were multiplying beyond control or sense as she gazed rather sadly at him. ‘I just thought I’d let you know that similar, that other people…’ he said, not far short of a plea.

  ‘Well, you did. Thank you for putting yourself out on my behalf.’ The widow dug her ivory-handled stick into the carpet and levered herself to her feet with the nimble stiffness of a figure in a pop-up book. ‘Safe home,’ she said, using the stick to dislodge the pink snake of a draught excluder so as to let Oswald out of the house, and he was trying to think of a suitable wish in response to her words when the front door withdrew its tongue of light. ‘I tried,’ he muttered, and unlocked the Austin to fling his briefcase in before following it almost as roughly with himself.

  The dashboard lit up and showed him the time, which it would have been impolite to check while he was in the house: already ten past six. He swung the car across the narrow lane, sent it backwards until a twig of the hedge squeaked against the rear window, threw it into first gear and drove uphill. He was doing his best, he tried to convince himself as he braked at the main road before driving into Moor View opposite. Close to half of that street was safe because of him. Fire and theft, he thought as he passed cottage after small neat cottage, and the Crowthers at number five had a plan that in due course would pay for their eleven-year-olds at university, Lester

  Keene two doors up knew his policy was keeping pace with his stamp collection, the Whitelaws on the corner of Gorse Cottages were insured against any harm their Dobermans might do. ‘Never be too safe,’ Oswald murmured as he turned onto Nazareth Row, from which several huddles of cottages faced the park. A few seconds later the Austin coasted left onto the gravel.

  With its imposing facade and long elegant windows, Nazarill was as near as the town came to a mansion. Only the four disused chimneys rearing against the charred sky gave the place a slightly eccentric air. Oswald lined the car up close to the much-travelled Porsche and paused a moment to admire the stature of the building, then strode around to the front, ducking as a security light attracted a large fly or a moth. As the fierce lamp reduced the insect to ash, Oswald fished his keys out of his overcoat and let himself in.

  The glass doors excluded the sounds of the town—dogs barking not quite in unison, a woman’s quick clipped footsteps on a pavement, the yipping of a car alarm—and the warmth of Nazarill embraced him. Together with the silence and the discreet light of the panelled corridor, it felt like balm. It soothed him all the way to the top, where only the jingle of keys approaching his door broke the quiet. When he opened the door he found Amy waiting in the hall.

  He gave her the smile which pinched his lips together. She was still Amy, however much he sometimes thought she was trying to appear not to be, her shoulder-length hair tinged green and pink, a stud gleaming in her left nostril, three rings adorning that ear, two jostling above the lobe of the other. He caught himself hoping that no more of her was pierced beneath the black T-shirt and mournful mini-skirt and funereal tights. As though the burden of metal inhibited the movements of her pale thin oval face, she only raised her eyebrows and brightened her eyes momentarily to acknowledge him. ‘Had a good day?’ he said.

  At least, he began to; but the hi-fi had no patience with his standard phrase. What sounded like the effects of tortures he would rather not imagine commenced shrieking from the speakers, and he dodged into the hall and pulled the door shut. ‘Amy, could you turn that down for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Pardon?’ he saw her pronounce.

  ‘Down,’ he said, shoving his keys into his pocket and slapping the air with that hand. She only gazed at him, but the uproar started to diminish. ‘There, it’s obeying you,’ she said, audibly now.

  ‘I’m not quite senile yet, Amy. We both know it’s just the end of a song, if song’s the word. Please lower it before somebody complains.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Do it, please, unless you want me to turn it off.’

  The electronic agony subsided, and the next track immediately began. It was almost a ballad. ‘If this isn’t heaven I’ll stay for a while…’ ‘I thought you liked this one,’ Amy said.

  ‘It’s a relief.’ At times Oswald found the melody and even some of the words running through his head, but the nearest he could venture to admitting that now was ‘I do quite.’

  ‘I’ll turn it down when it gets louder.’

  ‘Don’t need to be told again.’ He felt defeated, not least by having said that, which was no doubt as unnecessary as he saw she thought it was. He hung his coat in the bedroom wardrobe and was heading for the kitchen when she informed him ‘An envelope came for you.’

  ‘Only an envelope?’ When she didn’t think that worth a smile he tried to vary her gaze by saying ‘Do I have to guess where it is?’

  A shrug of her head and one shoulder directed him to the envelope in the midst of the scant space on the table that wasn’t claimed by her homework. He scarcely needed to rip back the flap to recognise the kind of letter he’d been sent: a personal message for MR OSWALD PRIESTLEY and his family. Have you ever wondered how you and your family would cope with a serious illness, MR PRIESTLEY? If you had to wait for treatment, MR PRIESTLEY, how long would your family be able to survive financially?… ‘Private medical care,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we need that, do we?’

  This time Amy shrugged both shoulders, and he dropped the wad of crumpled paper in the kitchen bin. ‘Will you be long at your homework?’ he said. ‘We ought to start putting the food out quite soon.’

  ‘You can now.’

  ‘Don’t clear away if you haven’t—’ But she was already gathering her books with a vehemence he might have taken personally. In a very few seconds she was across the hall, and he heard a thud on the
floor of her room. The ballad ended, and just as a voice screamed ‘Time to go to hell’ Amy marched back to grab the control and kill the tape. ‘I didn’t say you had to switch it right off,’ said Oswald.

  ‘Well, I did.’

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  “Lunch.’

  ‘Feel free to have a nibble as we carry through.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘You still need to eat, Amy.’ He heard himself urging food on her as he’d never had to years ago, when her waist had been as slim as it was now. ‘I’ve provided for you and any other vegetarians,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll have something later.’

  ‘Don’t make it too late. And I hope you don’t mean in your room.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m sure everyone would like to meet you for a kick off. As well as which, we could do with a few less plates vanishing into your room.’

  ‘I thought we were having paper plates.’

  ‘We are tonight, but I’m talking about generally. I’ve been hunting for at least one knife and fork, and I can’t imagine what you do with all the spoons.’

  Amy gazed at him until he began to feel as petty and absurd as it was clear he sounded to her. ‘Well, I’m seeing to the spread,’ he declared.

  Some of the topmost branches of the oak were fingering the light from the kitchen. As he opened the tall refrigerator, Amy’s reflection appeared at their tips, which seemed to cast her up to hover in the air while she approached along the hall. ‘These are all meatless,’ he said, handing her a tray in the hope she would be tempted. When he followed with a trayful of sausage rolls, however, he found her gazing at the vol-au-vents and murmuring to herself. ‘What’s that, Amy?’ he said.

  ‘Flights in the wind.’

  ‘Really? If you say so.’ Even when he realised she was translating the name of the snack, his unease didn’t quite dissipate. He sent himself back to the kitchen, to be trailed by Amy at half his speed. Between them they set the table, although since she was being more than usually averse to the proximity of meat, most of her effort was devoted to laying out plastic utensils and paper plates. She was creating an artistic arrangement of them when Oswald finished his last sortie. ‘You were going to bring forth some of the hoard from your room,’ he reminded her.

  ‘I’m going to.’

  ‘You’ve already proclaimed your intention. For a change, how about—’

  The apartment door buzzed with a sound too urgent to have time to be musical, and Amy darted towards it. ‘I’ll answer that,’ Oswald said, ‘while you—’ and raising his voice as he pursued her into the hall, ‘Amy, I said I’ll—’

  He gave up and assumed a welcoming expression, because she had opened the door. Beyond it was a man almost as wide as it, the neatness of his pinstripe suit and discreetly silver tie rather contradicted by the way his shirt was barely able to contain his overhanging stomach. Until he mopped his round face with a handkerchief which he then returned to his breast pocket, his forehead looked as moist as his slicked-back raven hair. ‘Am I early?’ he rumbled as though his throat needed clearing. ‘I lost your chitty with the time on it. Just say the word and I’ll plod back down.’

  ‘Don’t think of it. I did say sevenish,’ said Oswald, although he’d been precise. ‘I’m Oswald. This is my daughter Amy. Am I right in thinking you’re the photographer, Mr…’

  ‘Dominic Metcalf. If you ever want a memory preserving, I’m your man. And you’re…’

  ‘I sell insurance.’ Oswald had anticipated how Metcalf’s face would grow guardedly polite. ‘Don’t worry, not to you, not now. That isn’t why I asked everyone in.’

  ‘It’ll be good to rub shoulders.’ The photographer’s gaze strayed over the framed illustrations along the hall and came to rest in the kitchen. ‘Do I recall some reference to food?’

  ‘I hope there’ll be enough. You won’t have eaten, then.’

  ‘Advisable to leave a corner of the old tum free, I thought.’

  ‘Make a start by all means.’

  If Oswald hadn’t quite suited his tone to his words, that failed to trouble the photographer, who surged through the doorway as if he had only now been invited and gave Oswald’s hand a belated pudgy shake before veering into the main room, where he sprawled in the nearest armchair despite its eloquent creak and visibly restrained himself from swinging his legs over an arm of the chair. ‘I’ll be up and about once I get my breath,’ he panted. ‘Shame they didn’t put in a lift instead of all those stairs.’

  ‘Stairs don’t get stuck,’ said Amy, having closed the door and followed the men into the main room.

  ‘Stairs and a lift as well then, young architect. Is that what you aim to be when you grow up?’

  ‘I think we’re in at least two minds about how we’ll end up when we’re even older, isn’t that the situation, Amy?’

  That earned Oswald such a glare for being patronising that Dominic Metcalf regressed the subject. ‘Do we have any sense of what this place used to be?’

  ‘The council offices were here when I was Amy’s age, before we all started to be administered from Sheffield.’

  ‘Sheffield’s not a dirty word, is it? I’ve a studio there.’

  ‘I’ve clients, and this young lady goes to school there, don’t you, Amy? I should think at least half the town goes off there every weekday, or to Manchester.’

  ‘What was it first?’ Amy said.

  ‘Here? Why…’ said Oswald, and found he meant both words as a question.

  ‘More offices, I shouldn’t wonder,’ the photographer said. ‘Offices breed offices, you know.’

  ‘It’s too old.’

  She made that sound as though it was the fault of someone present, and Oswald was about to take control of the conversation when the door uttered its buzz. ‘Why don’t you see what Mr Metcalf—’ he commenced, not rapidly enough, because she was already out of the room.

  ‘Dominic by now, I hope. Or Dom if that sticks in your teeth.’

  ‘Dominic’s no bother. Excuse me a moment,’ Oswald said, and leaned into the hall. Amy was admitting their next-door neighbours, the male half of whom gave her a grin which he maintained while striding up to Oswald. ‘Leonard Stoddard,’ he announced to the photographer, ‘and here’s Lin when she’s finished inspecting.’

  His face appeared to have been intended for a slightly larger head and to have been put on not quite straight, an asymmetry which his grin exaggerated. His tall but stooping wife had minutely curled short hair not unlike a poodle’s, except that it was even redder than her husband’s, and bright quick eyes which were busy examining the illustrations in the hall. ‘Are these from a book?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ Amy said, not necessarily in answer, ‘you’re librarians. Wasn’t there a book about here?’

  ‘About what was that, dear?’

  ‘This place. Nazarill.’

  ‘Now that I couldn’t tell you. My stamping-ground is discs and tapes. Stamping-ground,’ she repeated so as to nudge a dutiful laugh out of her partner. ‘Does the idea of a book set off any bell with you, Leonard?’

  ‘Not a tinkle. I could consult the screen for you if you remind me, Amy, isn’t it?’

  ‘Nice to see a book being put to so much use.’ His wife turned from the big-eyed children trooping after the Pied Piper and said to Amy ‘So how do you spell yourself? The usual way?’

  ‘You can spell when you want to, can’t you?’ Oswald said, and sent Amy an apologetic look, too late.

  ‘I just meant our Pamela’s taken to putting an H on her end. She’s imaginative that way. Nice to see, we think.’

  ‘She’s twelve,’ Leonard said to Amy. ‘She was wanting to meet you, but she’s shy when there’ll be people.’

  ‘You could zoom next door and see her if you like.’

  ‘And if you hit it off there might be some extra pocket money for you when we need, we mustn’t say a baby, but a sitter.’

  �
�Go now if you’ve time, before it’s lights out,’ Lin suggested, and blinked at a knock on the door. ‘That’s never the hermit come out of her cell.’

  ‘I know who it is,’ said Amy, and answered it without bothering to use the spyhole. ‘Hi, Beth.’

  The homeopath twisted round as Amy sidled past her. ‘Are you really not staying?’

  ‘I’m coming back. There’s just my dad and—oh, here’s some more people.’

  Oswald hurried to welcome Beth Griffin and whoever else was approaching. ‘In you come,’ said Lin to the homeopath, ‘nobody bites.’

  ‘Don’t be too—’ Oswald called after Amy, but the door of the neighbouring apartment was already closing, and now his guests overtook it: Ursula Braine, a florist redolent of her trade; Ralph Shrift, who examined the framed illustrations, cocking his head and levelling an upturned palm at each of them, as though considering them for the gallery he ran in Manchester; Paul Kenilworth, a violinist who murmured ‘I hope nobody is troubled by my practising’ and betrayed some pique when several of the guests had to have that explained. While Oswald produced drinks for the party to serve themselves from the sideboard, more people arrived to be let in by Beth as if doing so was a form of therapy. Peter Sheen entered toying with an expensive personalised ballpoint, as much an emblem of himself as of his journalism; Teresa Blake raised her wide flat face and surveyed the gathering much as she might have scrutinised them from her magistrate’s bench; Max Greenberg seemed barely able to see them with his watch repairer’s vision, despite thick lenses which appeared to float his eyes out of his face. Beth retreated to her apartment to fetch chairs, and the first of the doors she’d left ajar invited in the owners of Classic Carpets, Dave and Donna Goudge, who had carpeted the whole of Nazarill and whose His and Hers names were greeted by Lin Stoddard with an approving squeal. Alistair Doughty, a printer whose hands looked flushed from being scrubbed, turned up just in time to help Beth transport four straight chairs, which they lined up beside the door of the Priestleys’ main room. A pause ensued while those who weren’t pouring themselves drinks looked at the chairs, and then Leonard Stoddard said ‘Shall we call the meeting to order? We’re all here, aren’t we?’