Read Online Dark Terrors 3 by David Sutton Stephen Jones - Free Book Online Page A

Treen’s young son began to scream inexplicably. When Lily took him into the hall outside, he threw up with gusto on to the marble tiles. Everybody must have heard. Mrs Tizard began to cry. Afterwards, when questioned and consequently disbelieved, the child gabbled incoherently about a nasty lady who had put out her tongue at him. From what the adults could gather, the tongue had been black
     
    * * * *
     
    The following morning, Cynthia Peeling offered to accompany the Tizards to Wren’s Nest to look over Emma’s belongings, so they could decide what they wanted to keep once the police had finished with everything. Cynthia thought this was the most forlorn and depressing of post mortem tasks.
     
    Mr Tizard opened the front door of Wren’s Nest and the three of them shuffled inside. This was only the third time Cynthia had ever set foot in the place. Emma had often popped over to share a quick coffee with her neighbour, especially in the summer, but reciprocal invitations had been non-existent. It certainly couldn’t have been because Emma was ashamed of her home. The walls were papered in the most modern, expensive prints that money could buy and the furnishings bore the stamp of a top interior design house.
     
    ‘What a peculiar smell!’ Mr Tizard exclaimed as he went into the lounge. Cynthia Peeling followed him and sniffed.
     
    ‘What is it?’ queried Emma’s mother querulously from the hall.
     
    ‘Nothing alarming!’ Cynthia was conscious of her voice being too loud and jolly. ‘Some kind of perfume. A bit stale, that’s all. The windows have been closed.’ The smell was strange. It caught at the back of the throat, half pleasant, half noxious. Had Emma Tizard been burning incense of some kind? Cynthia firmly dismissed a rising sense of unease.
     
    ‘She was such a tidy girl,’ Mrs Tizard said, standing pathetically in the doorway, holding her handbag in front of her. The place didn’t look lived in. No ornaments, no books, no magazines, no sense at all of occupation.
     
    It looks like a show home, Cynthia thought. She examined the gleaming hi-fi system and television. It appeared they had never been used.
     
    ‘I don’t think she lived in this room much,’ Cynthia said.
     
    Moving close together, the three of them advanced into the dining-room. Here, the same clinical tidiness prevailed. In a drawer, Mr Tizard discovered a stainless steel cutlery set still wrapped in plastic. ‘Emma didn’t entertain much, it seems,’ he said.
     
    ‘No, she never brought friends home, not that we saw,’ Cynthia Peeling said. She eased herself past the Tizards and went quickly through the dove grey and pale lemon kitchen that bristled with factory-new appliances. ‘Perhaps we’ll find more sense of her in her workroom.’
     
    * * * *
     
    When Cynthia opened the door to Emma’s workroom, all three of them uttered shocked sounds. Not because of anything unpleasant exactly, but just because of the contrast between the workroom and the rest of Emma’s home. There was a choking stench of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol. Thick blue velvet curtains were drawn across the window. Cynthia quickly went to open it, craving fresh air. She threw back the curtains. Beyond them, the window was frosted. It was not a big room, perhaps partitioned off from the bathroom. There was barely space for the large, ancient desk under the window and the huge cupboard against the far wall. Bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, apart from a place opposite the door where a huge, gilt-framed mirror hung. Papers were strewn everywhere; ashtrays overflowed on to elderly coffee-mug rings; an easel stood folded in a corner draped with rags. Empty gaps in the clutter suggested items which had been taken away by the police.
     
    ’Yes, well, I certainly think we have a sense of Emma here,’ Mr Tizard said dryly.
     
    ‘You think so?’ Cynthia Peeling was not so sure. What they had found here had little link with