NINE ROOMS

Chapter 1

Emmy

Ogilvy House, somewhere on the outskirts of Edinburgh

Fri afternoon, July 2024

The house creeps me out from the start. Shadows everywhere, a weird hush-hush silence, and actual bars on the downstair windows to the rear. But I don’t want to pass on my worries to Nancy so I mess about, waltzing round the dining table, waving a lah-di-dah hand and announcing, ‘And here is where we eat caviar off silver platters.’

‘Don’t forget the champers we drink from crystal glasses.’ Nancy laughs and lifts an embroidered cushion from a chair. She sniffs it for some reason. ‘Ugh.’ And drops it. ‘The whole place stinks of mould. Miss Ogilvy’s taste in décor is pure shabby shite.’

She slips her phone from her back jeans pocket and dictates. ‘Dining room, table, probably walnut. Keep. Chairs, eight, claw feet, green velvet pads, need reupholstering. Keep. Sideboard also good. Bin the rest.’

I breathe in. ‘I like the smell of old houses. Bit of fust, but also a hint of ancient paper, family secrets and a top note of – ’

‘Mouse piss.’ Nancy pockets her phone.

‘Ah yes. Eau de mouse piss. A scent every woman should wear.’ I look up to the ceiling. ‘Got all its cornicing. The family’ll make a fortune when they sell. Actually, did Miss O have any family?’ I turn to Nancy. ‘Nancy?’

She’s staring at the table with a frown. ‘Look at this.’

On the surface, near the edge, is a gouge about twenty centimetres long.

‘It’s deep,’ I say.

‘And fresh. Like, done-recent fresh. There’s splinters sticking out. What the hell?’

I roll my eyes. Even though my sister, at nineteen, is a couple of years older than me she’s a great big coward. ‘When did our dear departed Miss Ogilvy die?’

‘Two weeks ago maybe.’

‘There you go. She could’ve done it just before she croaked.’ I’m not a gouge-ologist but it makes sense Miss O knew she was dying and either panicked or had a mad turn and attacked the table. ‘What did she die of?’

‘Dad didn’t say.’

I press the back of my hand to my forehead and dip back in a swoon. ‘The vapours. Or a broken heart because she died a miss and not a missus.’

Nancy smiles, or at least I think she does, can’t tell in this light. The room is dim with shadows, the lacy nets at the tall windows doing their best to stop sunshine getting in.

Shadows can hide nasties but Dad has checked out the house to ensure it’s not a verminous property. In other words, no dead bodies, food waste, needles or manky rubbish that will give us a disease. He once found a dead cat covered in maggots under a bed. Described it to me, with gusto, right when I was eating macaroni cheese. Finding dodgy stuff is a definite drawback of having a house-clearing business. But Ogilvy House has been given the all-clear, so it’s okay for Nancy to swoop in and see what can be sold and what’ll be taken to the tip. Usually Mum helps but as she’s busy with her on-line cleaning-hack business I’m here instead.

While Nancy checks out the ornate sideboard, I scan the walls. If there was a competition for the vilest wallpaper in the world this stuff would be in the running – a navy background shot through with prehistoric-looking plants, like botanical drawings gone wild. I turn to point it out to Nancy but she’s gazing at the painting above the sideboard.

I walk over. Several bedraggled sailors are standing or squatting on a raft, most of them with their backs to the viewer, reaching up as if begging the heavens for help. The sky has an inky blue quality as if it’s about to crack out with the thunder and lightning.

‘Bit grim having this looming over you when you’re eating,’ I whisper. There’s something written in white paint in the bottom right-hand corner. I peer closer. ‘Ooh, save our souls.’

Nancy lets go a sudden snort. ‘Sounds like you were saying save arseholes, Emmy.’

I laugh, then a thwump! and my laugh changes to a shriek. 

Nancy’s head snaps round to the french windows, her curls bouncing. ‘What the hell?’

I skit over and squint through the nets. ‘Just a poor bird that’s battered itself flying into the glass. Look.’

A black bird, or a crow perhaps, lies awkwardly on the ground, not moving.

Nancy joins me at the window. ‘What a shame.’

We stare at it for a moment before she pokes me in the ribs. ‘Thanks, Emmy. Love a bit of dead-bird watching. C’mon, need to get on before Dad phones to see what’s taking us.’

After checking the other downstairs rooms – lounge, study, kitchen – we enter the hall.

‘Not impressed,’ I say, removing my jacket and hanging it over the banister. ‘The house might’ve been majestic once upon a time but it’s a right pit now. Miss O was obviously allergic to cleaning products. Dad’ll have to dump most of this stuff.’

‘Let’s look upstairs,’ says Nancy. ‘There might be some jewellery.’

I grin. My sister is a hard worker but she’s also a magpie – loves a bit of sparkle. Ever since she found an opal and diamond ring taped to the underside of a study chair she believes riches are to be found in every creaky house. She’s shown me all the hidey-holes a person might stash something they don’t want grasping family fingers to discover: a cranny behind an old fireplace or a cache under a loose floorboard. A perk of being a house clearer is discovering an heirloom that won’t be missed by the current descendants because they never knew it existed.

‘How many rooms upstairs?’ I ask.

‘Four bedrooms, plus a boxroom and a bathroom. I’ll take the two rooms on the left side of the house and the bathroom, you take the other two plus the box.’

‘Agreed.’

I race Nancy upstairs.

‘These carpets are a shocker,’ I shout, holding onto the wooden banister while tugging the back of Nancy’s t-shirt to keep her back. She squeals as I overtake to bound up the rest of the stairs to the landing.

The house has only eight main rooms but seems huge, with plenty of space and high ceilings. It’s a Victorian villa set in the middle of town and surrounded by hedges so high nobody can see in, even if they’re sitting on the top level of a double decker. I know, because it’s on the bus-route to school.  

The boxroom is empty. Not a stick of furniture or carpet or sun-smothering curtains.

‘Not fair!’ I yell. ‘Nothing in here.’

Nancy’s chuckle carries through the walls.

But there is an in-built cupboard. I’m not expecting to find anything and that’s why I gasp when I open the door. A doll with pouty lips, big blue eyes and a red spotty dress on the middle shelf. Her eyelids slide closed when I lift her. I gasped because I had a doll like this except her spotty dress was orange. I place her back on the shelf, close the door and head out to the hall.

Nancy is leaving her room at the same time.

‘Snap,’ she says.

‘Any luck?’

‘Nah, mouldy old bed-frame, a mouse nest and lots of cobwebs.’

‘You telling me the truth, Nance? No emerald necklace entwined round the curtain pole?’

Her brows rise. ‘I wouldn’t cheat family. You should know that, brainbox. Off to uni and as thick as shit.’

Nancy is half serious about the uni jibe. She won’t admit it but I know she feels bad about going straight from school into Dad’s business. She teases, or rather taunts, me about university every chance she gets.

‘Hopefully off to uni, Nance. Conditional. Still need the grades.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t be such a numpty then.’ She ducks into another room before I can thump her.

The second room is furnished: a bed, a side table supporting a lamp with fringes, and, good God, the carpet’s a horror show – deep red with swirls of green and orange. Pure tacky-pub vibes. I look under the bed – clear. In the table drawer – empty. I open the cupboard door – a hexagonal stripy hatbox. Ooh, I spy with my beady eye a treasure trove.

It’s a complete disappointment – band accounts going back twenty years which could be interesting except the top sheet shows a balance of zero. As if Miss O emptied her account, or maybe her family did. Some folk do that – gang up on an oldie and strip them of riches. Or sling them in an old folks’ home and sell the house. Nancy has witnessed some terrible behaviour between family members when large sums of money are involved. Vultures she calls them. Which is cute coming from a Magpie.

Underneath the papers is something hard and rectangular. I tug it out. A jewellery box. A cheap design with a plastic ballerina that twirls to a tinky-tonk tune. Nancy gave me a similar one for my seventh birthday. Kept it for years. This box has two fluffy rabbits on the lid. Mine had an interlaced pattern of blue and yellow flowers. I open the lid and sigh. Yep, empty again. But all the same I turn the winder at the back and grin as it chimes out a few notes before cranking to a stop. The same as my jewellery box – Beautiful Dreamer. I close the lid and return it to the hat box.

‘I’m on the last room,’ I call out. ‘Nance?’ I step into the hall.

She slowly backs out of her second room and faces me.

‘You all right?’ I ask.

Her hazel eyes are wide and she opens her mouth but says nothing.

‘What is it, Nancy?’

‘Come and see this,’ she says in a low voice.

I follow her into the main bedroom. Nothing suspicious to see, just a bed, various other furniture, and a bay window draped with gold velvet curtains. She points with her nose to a cupboard door. I hesitate, not wanting to find a rat’s nest or something equally disgusting.

She waves an impatient hand. ‘Open it.’

The door is my height, the paint a yellowing white. Nothing strange so far. I tug it open and when it sticks I jerk harder. ‘Surprise, surprise, it’s empty.’

‘The door.’

I examine the inside of the door. Scratches. The scratches are chest height and the buff-coloured wood shows where the paint has been scraped away completely. Interesting. I place a finger on one.

‘What are you doing?’ Nancy squeals.

‘Just touching it. Calm down.’

Nancy’s acting weird. She can deal with all kinds of creepy crawlies but here she is, freaked out by some scratches.

‘Do you think someone was trapped in this cupboard?’ I ask.

‘That’s exactly what I think, Emmy.’

‘Someone could’ve been locked in for a joke.’

Nancy is claustrophobic. She got stuck on the London Tube’s Misery Line a few years ago and had a panic attack. Something to do with the air not circulating.

I lay a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s fine. I’m thinking decrepit, fog-brained Miss O got herself locked in.’

‘There’s no lock.’

‘Well, maybe there was at one point.’

Nancy shakes her head. ‘There would be holes. I don’t like this house. Didn’t like it as soon as I stepped inside. I didn’t want to say anything and spook you out.’

‘I’m not spooked,’ I lie, not liking the fact we’ve both got a bad-vibe thing going. ‘The house is old and creaky and smells like egg farts but it’s not serial-killer scary. The scratches could be from a dog that wouldn’t stop barking and they shoved it in here to get some peace.’

Nancy gives a shivery smile. ‘That’s a stretch but I’ll go with it. Okay, let’s finish asap. You do the last room. I’ll see you at the front door.’ She gives the cupboard one last look before leaving.

The house is getting to me too. It could be the bars on the kitchen, study and bathroom windows downstairs, suggesting Miss O was scared of someone getting in. Or it could be the silence. There’s no noise from outside, not even birdsong or a traffic hum. It’s a strange quiet. Heavy.  

The last bedroom is next door to the main, facing front of house. I turn the handle, open the door, step in and freeze. In fact, the whole scene freezes. Even the dust motes swirling in the soft light freeze. There’s a charge in the air as if lightning is about to strike. Blood drubs in my ears as my mouth opens to call Nancy, because she’s right – there’s something wrong with this house. But no sound comes out. My hand goes to my back pocket for my phone because I want to take a photo, but I don’t have it – it’s in my jacket which is hanging over the banister downstairs.

Before me is a single bed and a bedside table. The bed has a pink duvet, and on the duvet is a doll wearing an orange spotted dress. On the bedside table is a jewellery box with a pattern on the lid of interlaced blue and yellow flowers.

I know this room. This is my childhood bedroom.

My stomach churns. I want to heave but the sound of the front door slamming shut snaps me into action. I rush over to the window and splay my hands on the pane. Nancy comes into view below, and I’m about to bang on the glass when I see another figure walking a few feet behind her.

I gasp. It’s me. The figure that follows Nancy to the car is me.