A Treachery of Friends

Sid was fast asleep when the phone rang. Pitch dark, country dark, not a pinprick of light. Her consciousness struggled to heave itself from a vat of dreamless treacle. She groaned. Fumbled her fingers over the bedside table and managed to knock over the glass of water.

‘Fuck.’

She found the lamp switch. Flicked it on. Picked up her phone. Two minutes past seven in the morning. For a moment she couldn’t believe it. It felt like the middle of the night and Tank seemed to think so too. He’d scrambled up the stairs and was now standing in her bedroom doorway yawning widely, his long pink tongue curled between rows of shiny white teeth. Sometimes, like now, she couldn’t believe she shared her cottage with a dog. A huge dog at that; an attack dog. A bullmastiff. She’d never had a dog before and when her landlord – a down-to-earth, no-nonsense farmer – had insisted she take Tank in for a fortnight, she’d only done it to prove she didn’t need a guard dog. Ha ha. Because here Tank was eight years later, greying around the muzzle, a little fatter, a lot more spoilt, and completely part of the furniture.

She squinted at the phone’s display. Number unknown. She couldn’t think who it might be. Nobody rang her outside work hours. She switched it to mute before shoving it aside. Another nuisance call, no doubt. She’d been getting loads recently. Been in an accident? Been mis-sold an insurance policy? She really must do something about it.

Tank flopped on the floor, gave a sigh. He obviously wasn’t ready to go out yet and although she didn’t have to get up for another hour or so – the joy of being self-employed – she was now too awake to go back to sleep. Her mind was already flitting over her presentation to a group of psychology students at Bath uni that morning. Would they be open to her explaining that as far as she was concerned, the paranormal didn’t exist? That it was the human psyche that created things that went bump in the night?

At her last talk, a woman had called her the Devil’s Mouthpiece before storming out, unable to believe her pet psychic – who’d also been in the audience – had been using nothing but a box of common psychological tricks to convince her that she was talking to her dead mother.

Why did people believe they were talking to the dead? Why did they believe in ghosts? Questions like these were Sid’s bread and butter. She was fascinated by uncovering the psychology that made people believe they were experiencing the paranormal which, nine times out of ten, turned out to have a sound scientific answer. Some people called her a ghostbuster, but on BBC Radio Wiltshire last year, they’d called her a supernatural scientist.

Ha! Don’t make her laugh. Scientist she was not. She did one term at uni before dropping out. But at least now she could now see why her mother had put her faith in the paranormal rather than face the truth that her husband had abandoned her. It was all about comfort.

Kicking the bedclothes back, she pulled her father’s oversized dressing gown over her pyjamas. Pushed her feet into a pair of sheepskin-lined Ugg boots. The heating hadn’t come on yet and the floorboards were freezing. In the bathroom she switched on the boiler before heading downstairs. Tank mooched along behind her.

While he sniffed and peed in the back garden, she brewed some tea and lit a cigarette, moving to the window to watch the blue tits and goldfinches come and go from the feeder. When she caught her reflection, she shifted so she couldn’t see it any more. Her face was thin and unsmiling. She looked angular, unapproachable. The woman she used to be – warm, lively, fun; she’d vanished when she’d overheard the gang talking about her in the pub. Not that she blamed them as much as herself. After her mother died, she’d gone off the rails in a spectacular fashion. It may have been a coping mechanism but when she looked back, she cringed. She’d been so reckless, so stupid. Little wonder she couldn’t bear to look at herself.

She drank her tea and finished her cigarette. Beyond the drystone wall, the rolling fields were empty of Jersey cows, who were being wintered indoors. She missed seeing them but it wouldn’t be long before spring was here and they’d be browsing past her garden, huffing and swishing their tails and filling the air with the sweet smell of grass and warm cow hide.

Her cottage, a tiny two-up two-down, apparently used to house a farm worker, his wife and five kids, which made Sid feel strangely selfish moving in on her own. Her favourite room was the kitchen with its wood-burning stove and original 400-year-old timber beams. She’d sit at the table and plan out her next gig, be it spending a sleepless night in Hampton Court Palace, supposedly one of the most haunted buildings in Britain, or travelling to the Isle of Wight to investigate a psychic dog. The one thing you could say about her job was that it was never dull.

In the garden, a sparrow darted from the hedge to the feeder. There was something comforting about the rhythm and movement of the countryside, just yards away. She used to live in Jericho, in Oxford. She’d been a townie, nipping to the pub once or twice a week, partying, clubbing, but now? She’d be in her jim-jams by nine in the evening watching whatever Netflix had to offer. She frowned. Perhaps she should move. But where to? Why? She was content here. At ease.

A scratching at the back door reminded her to let Tank in, give him his breakfast. While he ate – extremely noisily as usual, pushing the tin bowl across the stone flagstones to jam it against the skirting board – she picked up her phone to check her emails. Four missed calls, all from the same number unknown. Perhaps it wasn’t a nuisance caller after all, but she still couldn’t think who it might be. She was gazing nonplussed at the phone when it rang again. This time, she answered, but she didn’t say anything.

‘Hello?’ a man said. ‘Hello?’

‘Hello,’ she responded.

She thought she heard him say, ‘Thank fuck for that.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Miss Scott?’ the voice asked. ‘Miss Sidney Scott?’

‘Who is it?’

‘My name is Detective Kelly. I’m from the Gloucestershire Police.’

It was like being doused in ice water. Her father was still listed as missing. Had they found him?

‘What’s it about?’

‘Are you Miss Sidney Scott?’ His voice held weary impatience.

‘How do I know you’re a policeman and not some scammer?’

She thought she heard another, ‘fuck,’ then, ‘Trust me, I’m a policeman. I need to come and see you. This morning, if possible. You’re at Nook Cottage, Neston, am I right?’

‘I won’t be in.’ Her voice was crisp, covering her lie. She had no intention of having a stranger in her home, Tank or no Tank. She wondered if she could hear the Detective grinding his teeth.

‘Perhaps you could come to the station?’

She dithered briefly before saying, ‘I’ll be at Bath University, if that helps.’ She could purloin an office if necessary. ‘Newton Park campus.’ She gave him directions.

‘I’ll be there in an hour.’

‘I’ll be there at midday.’ She was firm. There was no way she was going to compromise her course until she knew what was going on.

‘Can’t you make it any earlier?’

‘No.’ The word came out more abruptly than she’d planned, but she seemed to have lost the art of feminine, polite niceties after living alone for so long.

When he didn’t say anything, Sid hung up.

She felt odd, her hands disembodied from her arms as she put the phone down. He hadn’t mentioned her father. Why not? Was he alive? Was he dead? Out of nowhere she felt the urge to cry. Shit, shit.

Real fear opened inside her, dark and cold, like an underground river that never sees the sun.

She’d always held out the hope her father was alive. That maybe he’d knocked his head, lost his memory, forgot who he was. She’d pictured him working in another country, sharing a beer with another physicist at the end of the day, maybe in Melbourne or Singapore. She’d imagined him married to someone else. Maybe with another kid or two. Then she’d imagine the police or Missing People finding him and putting them in touch. Dad ringing her. Asking her how she was. What grades she’d achieved at uni.

I dropped out, she’d tell him.

She’d imagine his response. Horror, dismay, disbelief.

But you were going to be a lawyer. Fight for the underdog. It was what you always wanted to do.

I couldn’t concentrate.

What a waste. He’d shake his great shaggy head. All your education, thrown into the bin.

In her imaginary conversations she never told him about Mum’s illness. Instead, she’d dream about him introducing her to his new family. Pictured them all getting along brilliantly, cooking together, laughing and holidaying in the sun. She’d fantasise that she had a family again. But if he was dead, then she couldn’t do that anymore.