The Murder House. Michael Wood

two of them, alone, James had grabbed Matilda, lifted her up onto the granite worktops in the kitchen and made love to her right there. It was the best sex they had ever had. It wasn’t long before they had christened every room, including the double garage which wasn’t the most romantic place to make love in, and the toilet under the stairs was just silly and resulted in James pulling a muscle in his back. However, in the long lonely nights since James’s death, she remembered these moments of happier times and she smiled. She’d go into the downstairs toilet and she’d laugh as she remembered how James had struggled to get up off the floor and hit his head on the sink. She went out into the hallway, looked at the chair in the corner and … no, all she saw in the hallway now was Ben’s lifeless body hanging from the bannister above. The house had been ruined for her. She’d had to move.

      While driving out of Sheffield she’d found a dirt track she had never seen before. Being Sheffield born and bred, Matilda thought she knew the city like the back of her hand, obviously not. Curious to where it might lead, she felt every bump in the road, and hit her head on the roof of her car twice as she plunged into cavernous pot holes. This was a bad idea. Her car wasn’t used to such roads, but something told her to continue. She almost became stuck at the sharp turn and the wheels spun on the incline, but she made it to the top eventually. She was glad she did.

      A dilapidated farmhouse with four unstable chimneys, tiles missing from the roof, uncared for brick work, tired window frames with dirty panes, an overgrown garden, untended driveway and a front door that probably only required a swift kick to open. Matilda was in love. She got out of the car and walked up the driveway, her eyes fixed on the unloved house. There was a ‘for sale’ sign that had fallen down at some point, lying in the tall grass. Surely this was fate giving her a sign.

      The house needed work doing to it before Matilda could even think about moving in. As her home sold quickly, she moved in with Adele while her new home, the aptly named Hope Farm, was made habitable. Fortunately, James had known many people in the building industry, and she contacted one of his trusted friends, Daniel Harbison. He’d been more than happy to help out, and when he had seen the enormity of the project, he rubbed his hands with glee. The windows were replaced, as was the roof. The chimneys were made safe, the whole house was rewired, the kitchen and bathrooms were ripped out and new, modern ones installed. Matilda and Adele spent many evenings going over colour charts and carpet samples and soon the house was ready for her to move in. There was just one room that needed finishing. On the ground floor, behind the living room, tucked away in a corner was a split-level room that led to the conservatory. This would make a perfect library, and as this was the room she would spend most of her time in, she wanted to make all the decisions herself.

      Now, she stood in the doorway to the library and looked around at the floor-to-ceiling shelves which Daniel had designed and installed. The wood had been treated and needed a few days to settle before Matilda could unpack the many boxes of books she had piled up in one of the spare bedrooms. This was to be her sanctuary. When work got on top of her, when life became too difficult, she would come in here, close the door behind her, relax in the Eames chair and lose herself in a novel.

      Matilda went into the living room and curled up on the large Chesterfield sofa. The walls were painted a deep red, the log fire was burning, and the entire house was warm, homely and welcoming.

      On the reclaimed railway sleeper above the wood burner, was a framed photograph of her and James on their wedding day. The marriage only lasted five years before James was cruelly taken from her, another cancer statistic. She used to spend hours with the photo in her hands, crying hysterically, screaming for him to be returned to her. Now, she looked into his ice-blue eyes and smiled.

      ‘You’d hate this house, wouldn’t you?’ she asked him with a laugh in her voice. Of course he would. James was an architect. As much as he admired period buildings, his job was creating new ones. That’s what he loved. Hope Farm was built in 1891, the same year Conan Doyle moved his Sherlock Holmes stories to The Strand Magazine. Everything about it screamed Victorian.

      Matilda was finally home. She was settled. She was almost happy.

      Following a couple of hours of reading the new Eva Dolan novel in the lounge, she felt her eyes grow heavy and decided to go up to bed. She closed the door on the wood burner so no burning embers would fall out and set the house on fire while she was sleeping, picked up her book and made her way upstairs.

      The house was deathly silent, apart from the usual noises houses made as they cooled down. She stood at the top of the stairs and looked over the bannister at the floor below. Through the stained glass in the front door, she could see thick branches swaying. They cast long shadows on the tiled floor in the hallway. They looked like gnarled fingers, crawling under the door, scraping across the floor. She shuddered at the thought. She’d have to buy a heavy curtain or something to hang in front of the door, block out the light.

      Something woke her. She opened her eyes to find she was still sitting up in bed. The lamp on the bedside table was still on, and the hardback novel was open on her lap. She looked at the clock; it was just past one o’clock. She placed a bookmark between the pages, closed the book and placed it next to another framed photo of James on the table. She turned out the light and was about to turn over to hunker down under the duvet when she heard a noise from downstairs. Her eyes widened. She remained still and listened intently. She heard the noise again. It was a creaking sound followed by a tap. Was it the floorboards or the stairs? Was somebody coming up? Matilda sat bolt upright and turned the lamp back on. A few seconds later, she heard the same noise again.

      ‘Shit,’ she said to herself.

      Matilda flung back the duvet and climbed out of bed. Next to the bedside table, one of James’s old cricket bats was leaning against the wall. She’d never had cause to use it in the past, but always felt safer knowing a weapon was to hand if she should ever need to defend herself.

      She put on her dressing gown, tying it at the waist and went over to the bedroom door. The brass knob was cold. She twisted it carefully to the right so as not to make a sound, pulled the door towards her and stepped out onto the unfamiliar landing.

      ‘Hello,’ she called out. Her shaking voice echoed around the empty house. ‘Is anyone there?’

      Creak. Tap.

      Her mouth dried. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. She gripped the bat hard and went to the bannister to look over the edge and into the hallway. There was nobody there.

      She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the creak and the tap again. It was coming from outside the front door.

      Creak. Tap.

      A branch outside the house creaked each time the wind blew and the tip of it tapped against the door.

      Matilda released her breath and sighed. She almost laughed. First thing in the morning, she was cutting that branch off. Standing on the stairs, cricket bat aloft, she suddenly realized how ridiculous she was being. Is this how life was going to be from now on? Every time she heard a noise, would she think someone had broken in or the ghost of Ben Hales had followed her here to torture her all over again?

      In the old house, even living on her own, she had never felt this frightened, this paranoid before. Was the fact she was living in the middle of nowhere worrying her? The isolation, the rolling countryside views from almost every window, the lack of neighbours – that was what had sold her the house in the first place. It was perfect. It was everything she had been looking for. She had thought.

      Maybe I do want people around me.

      Instead of returning to bed, Matilda headed for the living room. She pushed open the door and felt the warmth, despite the fire having died a couple of hours since. She turned on the light and almost screamed.

      The walls. The walls she had agonized over the colour of for weeks, the deep red which made the room warm and homely, in the haze of the room, looked like blood dripping down. She immediately thought of the Mercer house, the lifeless, mutilated bodies of Clive, Serena and Jeremy. She looked at her hands, still wrapped around the cricked bat, and for a split second she thought they were covered in blood. She dropped the bat and staggered