Humpty's Bones by Simon Clark Page A

She glanced at the door, its shattered safety glass held in place by the membrane of plastic. ‘He told me, You should always respect omens... beware, beware, beware... ’
    She telephoned the builder. Could he start work on her apartment earlier? It would mean so much to her if he could. She was desperate to move back in.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said the voice in her ear. ‘I’ve still to finish this loft conversion job in Salford.’
    ‘But you do know I’m homeless?’
    ‘I can’t just walk off a job. It wouldn’t be fair.’
    After the call she nearly talked herself into returning to the apartment anyway. Okay, the kitchen had been burnt. She could live off breakfast cereal, if need be. There was a café over the road. Only she recalled the smoke-blackened walls. And the stink. Even the thought of it made her throat feel as if had begun to swell in reaction to the stench of burnt plastic. No. I can’t go back there. Not yet. Instead of destroying yet more bridges, she should start repairing some. She made coffee, then went out through the damaged door to face her aunt.

    ‘For the last five years,’ Heather told Eden abruptly, ‘I have been struggling to persuade Curtis that this house should be our home. He wants to live in York. Last year a valuable sofa that he was storing for his father was ruined when the garage flooded. A week after that the airing cupboard door swung open at him. It left him with a gash in his head. He turns on me. He yells that the house is cursed. I’ve never seen him so furious. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to talk him out of leaving.’
    Heather revealed this to Eden as they both stood beneath the gazebo. The pit yawned at their feet. Rain had left the soil darker than before. Oozing moisture, it smelt of burnt things.
    Heather took a sip of the coffee that Eden had brought her. ‘Now, this morning you brightly tell Curtis that we’ve got a damn werewolf sniffing at our front door.’
    ‘I didn’t use the word ‘werewolf’. I just - ’
    ‘No, but you said this was the tomb of a boy with a dog’s head.’
    ‘Curtis won’t believe in werewolves.’
    ‘Maybe not, Eden, but that kind of speculation’s hardly likely to endear him to the house, is it?’
    Eden shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you’d be interested in what I’d figured out.’
    ‘Are you sure you’ve not got all this planned? A nice little scheme?’
    ‘Scheme? What scheme?’
    ‘Undoubtedly you know the terms of my mother’s will. It stipulates that even though she left the house to me I can’t sell it. Dog Star House stays within the family; it’s chained to us. Tied lock, stock and bloody barrel. Dog Star? The will doesn’t even allow us to change its stupid name.’ She looked shrewdly at Eden. ‘Tell me what happens to the house, then, if Curtis takes such a violent dislike to it that we have to leave?’
    Eden shrugged.
    ‘Surely, your mother - my sister - showed you a copy of the will?’
    ‘I only heard that you’d inherited.’

    ‘So you didn’t know that I can’t sell it? No?’ Heather smiled, albeit coldly. ‘Or that I’m legally obliged by the will to offer it for rent at a nominal sum to a specific chain of family members starting with my son? Graham won’t take it because he’s at sea all the time. Besides, living here bored him. Next in line is your mother. But she’s such a free spirit she can’t stay in any one place for longer than a couple of months straight. When she goes they’ll have to concrete over her grave.’ A joke, only Heather didn’t smile. ‘So who will be next in line to live in this house? And who would only be required to pay a few miserable pounds a month?’
    ‘I’m not interested in the house, Heather.’
    ‘It’s a big property - five bedrooms; two bathrooms; new kitchen. If Curtis pushes me into leaving it’s a certainty you’d end up living here in luxury. No doubt free to offer a bed to every psychopathic fire-starter