Free The House of Susan Lulham (Kindle Single) by Phil Rickman

Ledbury. Look, I… I’m not a superstitious man, Mrs Watkins, but after the business with Susan Lulham I confess I never wanted to sell that house again. But Grace Lulham… Susan didn’t leave a will, so the property went to her parents, and with Grace Lulham working just around the corner… I rather hoped they’d go somewhere else. But what can one do? Grace wanted it off their hands as soon as possible, at whatever price. Thepeople who bought the New House - for a song, of course - bought to let, but nobody seemed to stay long.’
    ‘Do you happen to know if…?’
    ‘No more suicides, but no one stayed long. I think four or five of them, before the owners decided to get rid. Didn’t come to us this time. Put it in the hands of the chaps over the road.’
    ‘Erm… if they
had
come back to you, Mr Unsworth, would you… perhaps have felt obliged to tell Mr and Mrs Mahonie about the previous owners?’
    He laughed.
    ‘Good lord, Mrs Watkins, I’m an estate agent!’ And then his face was solemn. ‘Yes, I probably would have. Been in this business over sixty years and … well, I have to say you do come across them. Unhappy houses. Houses that seem to attract ill-fortune. Sickness, marital discord, violent death… But it’s all nonsense, isn’t it? We put things together in our minds and make all kinds of horrible patterns. But that’s all it is… it’s in our minds. Don’t you think?’
    He was smiling. He knew she couldn’t think that. Merrily felt almost physically sick. She hadn’t believed Zoe Mahonie, so her inquiries had been perfunctory. When she’d suggested to Sophie that she should be trying to trace other people who’d lived in the house, Sophie hadn’t thought it necessary or even likely that she’d find out anything. Merrily hadn’t pushed, had accepted it, maybe with relief.
    And now Jonathan Mahonie lay dead in a drawer somewhere.
    ‘Can I get you a cup of tea, Mrs Watkins?’ Mr Unsworth said.

12. Bells
    There was a public car park next to the Gaol Street police headquarters, a building she usually avoided entering. She called Bliss’s mobile and he came out. He liked to come out because of what artificial white light did to his knocked-about head.
    ‘The problem is, Merrily…’ Leaning on the Freelander, his voice raised against the traffic. ‘How can I put this? The Crown Prosecution Service has never exactly been big on metaphysics.’
    ‘Yeah, well, if the CPS wants to shrink the world… fuck
them
.’
    She stiffened. Her voice had slipped into a break in the traffic, and an elderly woman had turned sharply around. Merrily’s hand instinctively covering the dog collar she wasn’t wearing.
Jesus, get a grip
.
    Bliss came away from the car.
    ‘So what specifically crashed into your world this time?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘You wouldn’t thank me. Little bells I’m supposed to listen out for have started ringing. Bells I can’t ignore, but you probably should.’
    The bells said Zoe might not be lying. Even if she thought she was, she might not be.
    Bliss said, ’You want to give me the bottom line?’
    ‘The house has form. I mean
before
Suze. Nothing you’d be aware of. No blood, no crime. Just things I should’ve found out that might’ve sent me back to Zoe before it all escalated.’
    ‘I’ve seen the Facebook stuff,’ Bliss said.
    ‘Nothing to do with that.’
    She was looking across the road at the redbrick magistrates’ court where Zoe Mahonie would presumably be making a short appearance, for commital to Crown court.
    ‘Only, in my experience,’ Bliss said, ‘exposure to social media makes daft people even dafter.’
    ‘It’s irrelevant. What I was wondering - did you find any books? In the house?’
    ‘Loads.’
    ‘I’m thinking non-Jonno books. Zoe gives the impression she avoids anything that might give her the creeps, but she apparently had a collection of paranormal DVDs and non-fiction books. None of which were on show when I went