‘Hmm, maybe.’
Lawrence was determined not to leave her until the last possible moment. He opened the gate and ushered her through. The lower storey of the house was also unlit and the overgrown front garden was a place of strange shapes and dark masses.
‘They say the place is haunted,’ said Lawrence, halfway up the path.
‘What? Why would you tell me that? Is that what you were about to say when you let me in the first time?’
‘Yes. But I thought it wasn’t a very friendly thing to tell a new resident. You’re in now and settled, so I thought I’d tell you. You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?’
He paused on the bottom step. Even in the dark, Jenna could see a kind of malevolent enjoyment in his eyes.
‘Of course not,’ she said briskly. ‘Who’s it supposed to be?’
‘A young woman, lived here at the tail end of the nineteenth century, married to my great-great-grandfather. Or is there another great in there? I never can remember.’
‘But wouldn’t that make her your great-great-grandmother?’
‘No. She was his first wife, but she died before they had any children.’
‘Poor thing.’
‘Suicide, or so they say.’
‘God.’
‘Well, on that note, I’d better leave you. Unless you want a bit of company?’
He lingered on the top step, clearly hopeful of being invited in.
‘I bet you’ve made up all this ghost stuff to freak me out so I’ll ask you in,’ Jenna accused. Her tone was jokey, but she wasn’t joking, not really.
‘Would I?’ Lawrence held his hands up and laughed a sheepish laugh.
‘Yes, you would, you git. Now go on. I’m fine. Goodnight.’
She hurried through the door and shut it firmly behind her without looking back at him.
Go, she thought, listening for his footfall down the steps.
The hall was not quite in total darkness, a shaft of moonlight coming out from behind a cloud to cast a pale bar across the grubby black and white tiles. The door of the drawing room in which she had been living until now was closed.
She made her way towards it, but her progress was impeded by a sudden jolt beneath her ribcage, so sudden that it was some moments before she realised it was an arm, pulling her backwards until she was held against something tall and solid and warm and human.
She screamed, her confused mind not yet having made the right connections, thinking for a mad moment that it was Lawrence. Then her sense of smell came to her rescue and she knew her captor beyond doubt.
‘Jason!’
He put his hand over her mouth.
‘Hush,’ he said. ‘Fucking ’ell, who did you think it was? You sounded like something out of a horror movie then.’
Her breath was gushing out of her at such a rate she couldn’t have spoken even with a free mouth.
He held her in a bear hug, waiting for her to calm, then removed his hand.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d know. I thought you’d like it.’
‘I would. I did. I mean, I wasn’t thinking. I’m not good with surprises.’