Naomi's Room by Jonathan Aycliffe

Naomi’s disappearance.’
    He began to leaf through them. His movements were curiously fine, curiously particular, like those of an antiquarian handling a rare folio or a grower of orchids planting a new specimen. There was such disparity between his appearance and his grace of movement. It made me feel strangely comfortable, this particularity of his, the delicate way his hands held and sorted the photographs. Perhaps, I thought, perhaps he will understand how this has happened, perhaps he will know what to do.
    When he looked up at last, his face was ashen.
    ‘Dear God,’ he whispered. That was all. They were not so pretty in those photographs, the little girls. Not so . . . well arranged.
    When he had recomposed himself, he put the photographs back in the folder. His hands were not so careful now, his movements had grown coarse.
    ‘Your wife,’ he said. ‘Have you shown these to her?’
    I shook my head.
    ‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘It’s best you don’t.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know.’
    ‘Tell me,’ I continued. ‘Do you have any idea why these images should have formed like this? Why they appear on film but not to the naked eye?’
    He shook his head slowly.
    ‘Not really,’ he answered. ‘I’ve given it a lot of thought, of course, but I haven’t been able to come up with any answers. Not good answers. I suppose it has something to do with the way the light falls through the lens. Perhaps they’re visible if you catch them in the right light, at the right angle. I wouldn’t know. It’s not my line of country.’
    ‘I could feel them,’ I said. I felt my flesh creep as I said it, remembering. ‘Sense them. In the attic. I’m sure that’s who it was.’
    ‘Have you taken any more photographs since . . . your daughter’s death?’
    ‘Not here,’ I said. ‘Why would we want photographs? But when we went to Egypt – yes, we took some there. I don’t know why, we weren’t in the right spirit. It seemed the thing to do. One doesn’t think.’
    ‘Have you had them developed yet?’
    I shook my head.
    ‘No. I put the films in a drawer after we got back. Neither of us wanted them. What would they remind us of, after all? It was just a . . . distraction. We never really looked at anything. There were statues, tombs, a hot sun: that’s all I remember.’
    ‘Let me have the films. I’ll get them developed later today.’
    ‘But in Egypt . . . ?’
    ‘They followed you to Venice, didn’t they? I don’t think distance matters to them.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. And I began to wonder where else they had followed us. And when it had all started.
    ‘I’d like your permission,’ Lewis said, ‘to take more photographs in here. All through the house. Especially in the nursery and the attic. I’d like to see what comes out. If I may.’
    The thought appalled me, but I nodded. He was right. It was something we had to know. He fetched his camera and I accompanied him to each room in turn. He photographed windows, doorways, passages, staircases, places where someone might be standing. Watching. Listening. Laura was not at home. Anticipating Lewis’s visit, I had asked her to spend the day with a friend. She had acquiesced readily.
    Upstairs, the nursery was as it had been. Lewis picked up some of the toys, as though touching them might give him some sort of sensitivity.
    ‘I don’t like it in here,’ he said. ‘There’s a bad feeling. And it shouldn’t be as cold as this.’
    ‘It’s worse in the attic,’ I said.
    ‘Yes. The attic. We’ll go up there now, if you don’t mind.’
    I found the key and preceded Lewis up the stairs. As I opened the door, the feeling of menace hit me again, as though something physical had leapt at me through the entrance.
    ‘Can you feel it?’ I asked.
    He nodded. Even with the shutters drawn back, it was gloomy. Deep shadows clung to the corners of the room. I switched on the large torch I had brought and swung the beam quickly round the roofed space.