“I didn’t. It’s Verney. Thomas Verney.”
“I have to explain, Mr Verney, that this is rather irregular, you see—”
“Dr Verney. Not a medical doctor, you understand, a Doctor of Science. I used to teach at the University. That’s all behind me now, of course. I’m retired.”
“I see.”
Oliver peeped round the plant stand. His mother’s voice had changed slightly. She’d put her glasses on now and she was inspecting the papers more carefully. He knew just what she was thinking, that a well-spoken retired professor from London University could give Number Nine a touch of class.
“As I say,” Mrs Wright began again, handing back the papers, “the usual procedure is for a new resident to come along to the house first, with someone from the Society. The room may not be to your liking, you see, and in any case we may not get on with each other. It’s a very small community, Dr Verney, and if people don’t get on …”
“Oh, I’m sure I shall be very happy here,” the old man interrupted, looking pointedly at the stairs. “I’m familiar with this street, you see, and I’ve always wanted to live here. So I wonder if you’d be so kind as to let me see the room?”
“As a matter of fact, it isn’t quite ready,” Oliver’s mother said firmly, standing with her back to the staircase. “I’ve not quite finished dealing with the last resident’s belongings.”
The old man wasn’t in the least put off. On the contrary, he started to ask a lot of questions about the house, questions which made him sound just a bit peculiar. He seemed obsessed with hygiene for one thing. Were there any rats or mice in the house, he wanted to know, with it being so near the Thames.
“Rats? I can assure you, Dr Verney,” Mrs Wright informed him frostily, “I’ve seen nothing like that in this house, not in all the years I’ve lived here, and in any case, Mrs McDougall, one of my residents, has a cat. I don’t care for cats myself, but they do deter rodents.”
Oliver smiled to himself when he heard that. Mrs McDougall’s Binkie was fat and spoiled. He wouldn’t recognize a mouse if he saw one. And if he saw a rat he’d probably run a mile.
When he heard his mother coming up the stairs, with the old man behind her, he made himself scarce. As he let himself through their own front door he could still hear her going on about the empty room being “by no means ready”, and about the Society’s rules and regulations. So he was a bit surprised when she came up half an hour later and told him she’d given Dr Verney the room after all. “Well, if he settles in, it could be pleasant company for your father,” she told him. “He’s a nicely-spoken old man, highly educated of course, a real gentleman. It makes quite a change from Mr Porter.”
“That wouldn’t be difficult, would it?” Oliver grunted. Old Joe Porter occupied a large front room on the ground floor. He flew into violent rages when people failed to wipe the top of the sauce bottle, and he sometimes came home drunk from the pub. “When’s he coming then?”
“Tomorrow. I explained about church but he said that Sunday was the only day his daughter could drive him here with his things. I told him not to arrive before twelve. We’ll be back by then. There won’t be very much to carry in anyway, only the necessities. I’ve explained about the month’s trial period … Dr Thomas Verney … I must write it down.”
Thomas Verney. It sounded old. The boys at his school were called Kevin, Mark, and Lee, and they had surnames like Bates and Whittaker. The cold, creepy feeling he’d had, when he’d spotted the old man through the window, hadn’t quite gone. Why on earth did he want to live at Number Nine anyway, with its fifty-seven stairs and its view of old warehouses? And how did he know there was an empty room? Oliver’s mother hadn’t told him.
Next day, as they walked back from church, the gang from the nearby flats were out in force as usual. Oliver always dreaded going past them. In two years’ time he’d be at their school and if he hadn’t grown a few inches by then …
The gang sniggered and made rude signs at his mother’s shapeless brown hat. If only she knew how daft she looked, marching along with her Bible under one arm and his hand tucked firmly under the other. On seeing the gang Oliver shook free and pelted down Thames Terrace.
Dr Verney had already arrived at Number Nine, but there was no sign of his daughter, and no car. The front door was open and he was trying to pull a small tea-chest up the front steps, into the hall. It was crammed with books and it obviously weighed a ton.
“I thought we’d agreed that you should just bring the minimum, Dr Verney,” Mrs Wright reminded him, eyeing the chest. Books were dust-traps, they’d got far too many in their own flat, and her new cleaner might object.
“But I must have my books around me, Mrs Wright.” The old man was very polite but very firm. “Apart from those I’ve only got a small suitcase.” And in two minutes he’d disappeared into his new bedsitter, and shut the door. They could hear him bumping around, then water running into a basin. “He’s washing his hands already,” thought Oliver. “He’s obsessed with rats and mice, and keeping clean. He might have good manners and a posh voice, but underneath he’s crazy.”
His mother was still staring up at the first floor landing. She was lost for words – an unusual state for her.
“Shut the door will you, Oliver,” she said, irritably. “It’s blowing a gale in here. Some summer we’re having; I wish it’d warm up a bit. There’s no sign of his daughter, I don’t suppose? I’d have liked a word with her.”
Oliver went outside again and peered down the street. It was deserted apart from a young man in jeans and sneakers, lovingly washing the black Porsche; all its windows were open, and a radio was on full blast.
He put his hand on the door knob; he’d better get inside quick, or his mother would start complaining. Then he saw something. On the peeling mud-brown paint of their front door someone had daubed a bright red cross.
The paint was still wet and sticky, and running down the door in streaks. “What on earth,” began his mother, coming out and seeing it. She looked down the street suspiciously, at the man cleaning his car, then she looked the other way, towards the Silk Merchant’s house, the ancient, gabled shop that the tourists sometimes came to photograph. There were no signs of life at all, apart from rubbish blowing about and an empty Coke can rolling in the gutter.
“Well, we know who’s responsible for this, don’t we?” she said angrily, folding her arms and staring at the crude red cross, “and they won’t get away with it either.”
“Who?” said Oliver.
“Those louts from the flats, of course. They must have done it while we were out at church. I’m going inside to phone the police. They’ll sort them out. It’s an absolute disgrace.”
Oliver lay awake for hours that night. Every time he drifted towards sleep his muddled, troubled thoughts tugged him back to consciousness. He was getting frightened. First Ted Hoskins appeared to have gone off his head, and had run screaming down their street, then this peculiar old man had turned up out of the blue. Now some yobbos had daubed their house with red paint. Oliver didn’t like it at all. His mother was always nagging him, about the creepy books he read, and about his curious obsession with grisly things. “You can have too much imagination, Oliver,” she was always telling him. But it wasn’t imagination; he knew something was wrong.
The police had interviewed the gang at the flats and they’d denied everything. “Well, they would, wouldn’t they?” his mother had informed the young sergeant. “Of course they did it, it sticks out a mile.”
“But why paint a cross, Mrs Wright?” the man had said nervously.
“Because we’re churchgoers, of course. They’re always on the streets when