Blackout, p.1
Blackout, page 1
Blackout
TIM HEATH
Blackout
Copyright © 2023 by Tim Heath
Published by HCP
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance of fictional characters to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All right reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, photocopying, mechanical, or otherwise—without prior permission of the publisher and author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Reader Map
Join My Mailing List
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter
One
Tallinn—Estonia
The isolated house didn’t look much from the outside. It was the old style wooden house common in the Estonian countryside with odd rooms and extensions added on and in this case with two separate entrances. The warped, decaying wood panelling hinted at its age, and it must have had its own charm back in the day.
Now it just looked old, uninviting.
The house was divided in two and they had bought the right hand side. They had said they would get around to fixing up the front soon.
Evidently, they hadn’t touched it since moving in.
The house belonged to Marcus and Tiffany Caine, a British couple who had moved to Estonia just over three years earlier. The makeover had been their labour of love since.
Now they were ready for their closest friends to see the interior at last.
Nick and Carol had lived in Tallinn for less than a year, newbies to the most northern of the three Baltic states.
Everything was still new to them.
They’d met Marcus and Tiffany almost right away. Carol worked at the same school as Tiffany. Carol had moved the family from Finland to Estonia as a result. Both couples had hit it off right away. Nick and Carol didn’t have any children—Carol had yet to mention to Tiffany if any were in the plan—though Marcus and Tiffany had two children, both daughters. Jenny was seven, Millie five.
As Nick pulled the car to the side of the road—there was still no driveway, another job that was on the to-do list—they couldn’t help but glance over at the house, with all of its dark history.
It had been Carol who’d told them about it. About who had once lived there.
About what they had done.
It explained why the house had been empty for a while. Explained why it had been so much cheaper than anything else Marcus and Tiffany had looked at when they had been house hunting three years earlier.
Carol gave the untouched front of the house and overgrown garden a once over as she walked from the car.
One look was enough. She knew they would improve it soon.
Tiffany had assured her that the inside of the house was totally transformed, Tiffany the designer. Carol would have to take her word for it. They’d only seen how the inside had looked from the images pulled from the police reports. One documentary that Carol had watched had gone into detail about the killer, which had included a brief tour of the wreck of his home.
It was why so many Estonians knew about the property. It was especially why none of them wanted to buy it.
Tiffany had brushed away the news when they found out. They’d been living there for two years by that point. Had spent tonnes of cash revamping the house. All to bring it well and truly into the twenty-first century.
Besides, they constantly reminded themselves of one important fact. None of the murders had happened there, apart from that of the killer’s wife, perhaps. There was some debate about even that.
She was most likely his first victim.
As Carol walked up the uneven cobbles on the poor excuse for a path, a cold shudder went through her at the thought of all that this particular house represented. It was as if the house had its own personality. This a first meeting face to face, but someone you knew a lot about given their famous nature.
One room upstairs had a light switched on. There was a twitch of the curtains from the room as they got to the front door. A sure sign that the girls were yet to go to bed. It was not yet eight o’clock.
The doorbell worked when Nick rang it.
They waited for a few seconds before the relative dullness of the front porch was transformed by the opening of the front door. Light from the beautiful hallway flooded them, Tiffany standing there, proud as punch.
“Welcome! Do come in.”
Marcus joined her, the two couples exchanging hugs, both Nick and Carol looking around, blown away by what they were now seeing.
“Tiff, this is stunning,” Carol said, as Millie, the youngest, came charging down the stairs, throwing her arms first around Carol and then doing the same to Nick.
“She’s done brilliantly,” Marcus said, an arm around Tiffany’s shoulders.
Hanging from his neck he wore a heart rate monitor, something they knew all about by now. It was a throw back to a more troubling time for the couple, something Marcus had since learned he needed to keep on at all times. Aside from the occasional warning beep, they all largely ignored the device, rarely commenting on it.
As they walked down the hallway, taking in the kitchen ahead of them, a room to the left and a lounge to their right, Carol could see that there were still signs of work in progress. A stack of paint pots in one corner, some tiling equipment in another. They avoided a step ladder that was resting against a wall, thick spots of paint on most of the steps, all long since dried.
They entered the lounge.
“Wow! You’ve totally changed the place,” Carol beamed. She was always one to watch any type of home makeover show. She flirted with the idea of buying a house one day that needed fixing up. However, even she would have drawn the line at this place.
Tiffany couldn’t stop smiling. It felt wonderful to have guests over finally. Not that they had too many friends yet. They’d found that Estonians were not the easiest of people to get to know.
For all they knew, there actually were people living in the house attached to theirs.
They had joked about that idea often.
In the three years that they had lived there, they had never seen them. The school community, with its international flavour, provided a more natural friendship circle for most involved in it.
“She has done a hell of a job.”
Marcus kissed his wife on the lips. He ushered them all to the sofas, the entire room with its soft palate of colours looking like something out of a magazine. It was minimalist, with high design, and for the lounge at least, there were no signs of anything left that needed doing.
This was the one room they’d finished.
The one room to entertain or relax in, where a pile of paint samples or a stack of tiles didn’t constantly remind them of the next job that needed completing.
There were photos of Marcus and Tiffany with the two girls, hanging on the walls. Nick took in the photos with admiration. He had always fancied himself as a photographer.
“Guys, it is beautiful. You would never know it was the same house. Not that we saw it before.” Jenny had joined her sister now, the pair sitting on the laps of Nick and Carol. Carol was Jenny’s class teacher that year at school.
“It feels great to have you guys over at last,” Marcus said. He stood up, leaving the room for a second, going to the kitchen where he grabbed them all some beer. As he came back into the room, he handed them a bottle each, Tiffany addressing their daughters:
“Girls, it’s time to say goodnight. It’s grown-up time now. You’ll see plenty of Miss Carol next week at school.”
The girls gave them both a hug, giggling as they chased each other back to their bedroom, both Nick and Carol smiling delightedly. They took a swig of beer, Carol itching to ask something almost before the footsteps on the stairs had gone.
“So what’s it like living in the most famous house in Tallinn?” She had a cheeky grin on her face. Nick rolled his eyes. He was surprised that it had taken her this long to ask. Carol laughed.
Tiffany hushed her. “Stop it. The girls are probably still listening and will only ask us questions in the morning.”
This surprised Carol. “You haven’t told them?” She had once almost said something at school to the entire class, though thought better of it, given their age.
Marcus was shaking his head.
“We didn’t see the point,” Tiffany said, weakly. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? It was before we moved here. Long before. They don’t need to know.”
“They aren’t wondering why you got it so cheap?” Carol asked.
Tiffany was laughin
Nick leaned forward, taking a swig of beer as he did so. “Will you ever tell them?”
Tiffany looked at Marcus, perhaps unwilling to answer that one herself. Perhaps it was a conversation they had not yet had, or even not yet agreed on? It was Marcus who answered.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I mean, is it something that would be helpful for them to know? Is it that important?”
“I think I would want to know if I lived in a murder house,” Carol said excitedly, almost automatically, this drawing another roll of the eyes from Nick, another long swig of his beer, too.
Tiffany shushed her again. “Keep it down. Besides, none of his victims died here.”
“His wife did,” Carol countered, the original authority on the scandal, though Tiffany was catching up fast.
“No, she died in hospital or on the way there. He poisoned her here, but she died later.”
Carol shrugged, as if it was the same thing in her book. All four drank their beer in silence. The conversation had become a little overheated. They knew it was long overdue.
“It still amuses me that you never knew when you bought it,” Nick said.
“Funnily enough, the agent never mentioned it when he showed us around… Makes sense why it had been empty for so long.”
“Makes more sense why it was a fraction of the market rate, too!” Nick said. They lived in an apartment, a rental. Though the property market had picked up in the last two years, it wasn’t a factor in why their friends had paid so little for a house that, given its size, should have cost four times what it did.
Perhaps now it was worth that?
If only the locals could see past the troubled history and look at what it was. That was assuming that Tiffany would ever think of selling. She had put all her summer holidays and most of the others too into transforming the house.
Now was the time to enjoy it.
They raised their bottles to buying the house so cheaply. With the beer nearly gone, Carol turned to Tiffany. “If you had known about the history of the house, would you still have bought it?”
She found this one harder to answer. Looking around the room, it was a place that was every bit a home to her now. “Honestly, for the price it was going for, I think we would still have gone for it. Naturally, it was a shock when we found out. Thanks for that, Carol, by the way.”
They shared an awkward laugh.
Tiffany continued. “But it was just a building at the end of the day. A house that needed lots of love and hard work. Now look at it.”
Carol said. “It’s stunning, Tiff. You’ve done a fabulous job. You both have.”
Nick looked at Marcus. “You’re doing the landscaping, I hear.”
Marcus was nodding with relish. “I can’t wait!”
The telltale sound of little footsteps coming down the stairs announced Millie was there, appearing in the doorway.
“Mummy, I can’t sleep.”
Tiffany went over to her. She held Millie in her arms, stroking her hair. “You guys order the food. I’ll put this little scallywag back to bed.”
Tiffany left the lounge, taking the stairs with Millie. Marcus’s heart monitor beeped at that moment, making him glance at it. They went silent, watching Marcus check the readout. They returned to their beer for a few seconds, Marcus tucking his monitor back down under his t-shirt.
“How is your health?” Nick asked.
“Absolutely fine. Mind you, this thing drives me crazy,” and he motioned at the monitor. “I swear it reacts to the slightest thing.”
They smiled, uncomfortably. Nick asked. “You’re not worried? About tomorrow, I mean, what it signifies.”
Marcus shook his head. “It’s just a birthday, okay, another day older. Being the same age as my father when he died is not something I’m going to fret about. My father never had a single blackout before he collapsed. So he never knew there was an issue. I’ve known for seven years now. The medication is keeping me safe. Besides, I’m not ready to die.”
Tiffany came back into the lounge at that comment, the three sitting sombrely, the mood dark.
She laughed. “God, I leave you for two minutes and you talk about death.”
They joined her in the laugh. She then reached for her phone, realising that they had done nothing about ordering the food. She opened up the app.
Chapter
Two
The meal had been delicious, the weekend beginning perfectly, the pizza restaurant they’d ordered from new to them. They already knew that it wouldn’t be the last time they got a takeaway from there.
Two bottles of wine were on the table, their glasses full, recently topped up, the night a thoroughly enjoyable one. It still amazed them to recall that they had only known each other for less than a year.
It already felt like five.
At eleven, they called it a night. It had been a long week. Carol was aware of the time. She stood up and Nick did the same.
“We’ll get going,” she said. “Allow you guys to prepare for the big day tomorrow.”
“Might we see you, Marcus?” Nick asked.
“You’ll have to ask her. I’m in their hands,” Marcus laughed.
Tiffany was hanging a Happy Birthday banner on the lounge wall, Carol helping her. They made sure it lined up neatly before moving to the front door to join the men.
Tiffany stood next to Marcus, kissing him. “It’s only an hour to go, so Happy birthday, darling.”
“Technically, it’s a few more hours yet. It’s only nine fifteen in the UK.”
Nick took in a photograph behind the front door that he had missed on arrival. There was a large group of people, evidently something scientific. He could see Marcus amongst them.
He looked closer.
It was Tiffany who said. “That was back in his working days, before the accident. A research expedition to the San Andreas Fault.”
“Did you ever experience any large earthquakes?” Nick asked, fascinated, pulling away from the photo and looking at Marcus, as Carol passed him his jacket.
“A few, minor ones really, nearly always just aftershocks. Still forceful enough to loosen roof tiles from the homes we were in.”
Jackets on, they hugged one last time. They wished him a happy birthday once again, heading out into the now darkened front garden where their taxi awaited. They would come back and grab their car in the morning.
Tiffany placed another colourful birthday banner on the back of the front door once it was closed.
Following Morning
The curtains in the bedroom were partially open, as Marcus stirred from a deep sleep.
He was alone in bed.
Tiffany’s side was still warm, hinting to him that she had not been up long. In the silence of those waking seconds, he soon heard the noises from downstairs, his special three no doubt busy at work in the kitchen.
Soon, there was a knock at the bedroom door. His kids rushed in, wishing him a happy birthday. Tiffany had a cup of tea for him. Both daughters jumped on the bed, hugging their dad. They handed him the cards that they had made for him.
He took time with each one, appreciating their effort, their creativity. He read the first one aloud. “Dear Daddy. I love you. Have a very happy birthday, love from Millie.” He kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you sweetie, that’s a lovely card.”
He took hold of the other card, a smile on his face. Reading aloud again, he said. “Intelligent, good looking, hilarious... but enough about me, happy birthday, Dad.”
Both girls were laughing hysterically at that. Tiffany was smiling. Marcus grabbed Jenny, kissing her on the forehead as he added. “Very amusing, Jenny. And yes, I find you hilarious.”
