Haunted (7 page)

He wheeled around on hearing a footstep in the hallway behind him, at once surprised by his own nervousness.

‘Miss Webb,’ he said, surprised even more by his relief. ‘Uh, the phone – looks like you’ve been cut off.’

She was close to him, peering up into his face. ‘We’re always having trouble with the lines,’ she said. ‘That’s one of the few disadvantages of living in the country.’ She took the receiver from him and, without bothering to check it for herself, rested it on its cradle. ‘I’ll do something about it when I go into the village tomorrow.’

Her eyes were intent on him and he wondered if the anxiety in them was merely her usual expression. She was a small woman, almost frail in build, and he guessed she was somewhere in her late sixties or early seventies. What was she to Christina and her brothers? An aunt, yes, but what else? As far as he could tell, she ran the house for them, and that had to be quite a task for someone of her age.

‘Mr Ash . . .’ she said, then hesitated to say more.

He waited.

It was almost a whisper. ‘You will take care while you’re here at Edbrook, won’t you?’

He could not help but grin. ‘I told you: spooks can’t touch us. They shouldn’t even frighten us really, not when we know their true cause.’

‘There are different ways to be . . .’ again the hesitation ‘. . . haunted.’

‘I thought you understood my views—’

Her retort was sharp. ‘No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand.’

‘Then explain it to me,’ he said stiffly.

But another voice interrupted before she could answer. ‘Our investigator doesn’t want his head filled with your silly notions, Nanny.’

They looked up to see Robert Mariell watching them from the stairs.

‘Isn’t that right, Mr Ash?’ His expression was only mildly reproving.

Ash turned back to the aunt. ‘I’ll be asking questions tomorrow,’ he told her patiently, puzzled by her behaviour.

‘Then we’ll leave you in peace,’ said Robert. ‘Come along, Nanny, let our guest get on with his work. Good night to you, Mr Ash. You won’t be disturbed again.’

With that he turned and disappeared into the darkness at the top of the stairs. Avoiding Ash’s gaze, Nanny Tess hurried after her nephew.

Ash watched her diminutive figure climb the stairs, then shook his head. It seemed that the Mariells’ aunt was not as keen on Edbrook’s ‘ghost’ as the rest of the family appeared to be.

Ash spent the rest of the evening setting up equipment around the house. Four thermometers, whose lowest reading during the night would be registered, were placed against walls or rested on furniture; tape recorders with noise-actuation devices were located in the library and kitchen; cameras linked to capacitance change detectors, so that any movement in the vicinity would trigger off shutters, were set up in the drawing room and study; at certain points, both upstairs and down, he sprinkled a fine layer of powder on the floor, and across one or two doorways he stretched black cotton.

Later, by lamplight, he sat in his room and studied rough plans he had drawn up of Edbrook, with its labyrinth of rooms and corridors, occasionally taking a nip from the vodka bottle standing within hand’s reach on the bureau. He smoked one cigarette after another as he made notes in a pad and now and again he would glance towards the window where the night seemed to press against the glass.

Eventually he left the room to roam the house, treading warily around powder patches, not entering those places containing detection instruments, nor disturbing doors with cotton stretched across.

Edbrook was quiet. And it was still.

Somewhere in the house a clock chimed the late hour. Ash, using a flashlight for guidance, walked the length of the corridor, passing his own room, heading for the window at the far end. Even though he was tired physically, his senses were acutely alert, as if his mind were a restless passenger inside a rundown vehicle. Kate McCarrick’s considered diagnosis of his usual condition was always clear-cut: ‘You drink too much, and smoke too much. And one day – it may be some time in coming, David, but it’ll happen – your brain will be dulled as your body often is.’ Might be no bad thing, Kate, he thought. No bad thing at all.

He reached the window and switched off the flashlight, standing close to the glass to see beyond. The blanket clouds had finally given way, although not entirely: milky-edged cumuli remained, almost motionless, tumbled in the night sky like frozen avalanches. The moon had a space all of its own, as though its white-silver had eaten away the surrounding clutter, and deep shadows were cast across the lawns and gardens below the window. There were forms down there other than those arboreal, statues whose clearly defined shadows pointed towards Edbrook like accusing fingers. From a distant place amidst the wooded areas came the hollow shriek of a night creature, a sound no less disturbing for its faintness.

Ash looked on, but his gaze did not rove, for his thoughts were directed inwards at that moment. The piteous, animal cry had stirred a memory, one more distant in his own mind than its catalyst from the trees. He remembered the sharp, human screech that had once skited across rushing water and possibly the vision would have emerged as a whole had not a noise from behind caused him to turn.

He flicked on the flashlight and shone it along the corridor, the beam swift to repel the blackness. The light caught a vague movement by the stairway.

Without hesitation, Ash hurried towards it and as he approached he realized that the fine powder he had laid earlier that evening was swirling in the air as though caught by a wind.

He stopped at the edge of the billowing, torchlight catching a million tiny motes in its glare, and stared in astonishment. There was no breeze that could flurry the dust so, and no person who might have caused the disturbance was on the stairs. He quickly checked a thermometer hanging nearby from a light-fitting on the wall and was alarmed to find the temperature was close to zero. Yet he felt no chill himself.

More sounds. From below. Like bare feet on wood.

Ash went to the balcony and peered over, shining the light into the hallway there. He glimpsed something grey or white disappearing round a corner.

Quietly, no more than a loud whisper, he called: ‘Christina?’

He moved to the stairs, brushing the still-swirling powder away from his face as he passed through. Descending hastily, he swung the beam around the hall until satisfied that all doors were closed, his attention then caught by further sounds. He pointed the light down the hallway towards the rear of the house, certain that the noises had come from the kitchen area.

As he went off in that direction he noticed the door beneath the stairs – the cellar door – was slightly ajar. He stopped, aware that he had shut it earlier, but another sound from ahead sped him onwards.

Ash entered the darkened kitchen, the flashlight darting from table to cupboards, sink to old iron ovens and grate, dresser to window. The low snarling seemed terribly close.

He turned too quickly, the torch catching the doorframe, the light instantly snuffed. With less control than he would have liked, Ash scrabbled on the wall by the door for the lightswitch, his fumbling fingers finding and striking down. The light was dull, but enough for him to see that the kitchen was empty. And that a door opposite, which he knew led to the terrace and gardens, was open.

He heard someone outside, a muffled giggle.

Leaving the broken flashlight on the table, Ash went through the kitchen and out into the night.

Bright though the moon was, it was several moments before his eyes adjusted to the contrast, and a second or two longer before he could be sure of what he was seeing. A figure dressed in flowing white was flitting across the terrace. It suddenly vanished from view.

Ash’s eyes narrowed, his face washed in moonlight. Again, almost under his breath, the question: ‘Christina?’

He followed, breaking into a slow run, reaching the steps that led down from the terrace into the gardens. He searched for the figure in white, certain that he had lost sight of it at this point. Yet nothing moved among the flowers and shrubbery below.

Ash descended and took the centre path towards the pond, eyes seeking left and right. He reached the low crumbling wall and looked down on the water, its still surface shiny with moonlight, the silver sheen somehow compelling.

His fascination was broken by the sound he had heard before – the soft padding of footsteps. Only this time they were hurried, and the bare feet were against flagstones.

He whirled around to face whatever it was rushing towards him, but was struck by a powerful force so that he hurtled backwards, the wall catching his legs, sending him toppling.

Stagnant water closed over his head, its grip cold and slimy. Ash struggled in panic as weed tendrils clutched him. He twisted frantically, their grip tightening. Clouds of mud stirred and swelled sluggishly so that the moonlight ceiling above was smeared.

As he fought to free his arm of syrupy fronds he saw, sinking towards him through those eddying clouds, a silhouette, a shape whose arms were outstretched, as if crucified, whose flimsy robe billowed and swayed with the currents, whose black hair spread outwards in Gorgonian tresses.

Foul-tasting water gushed in to stifle Ash’s scream.

. . . Edith woke, her eyes springing open, the nightmare still vivid.

She pushed herself upright in the bed, trembling and terribly afraid. But afraid not for herself.

She whispered his name . . .

‘David . . .’

Her breathing was laboured, its sound harsh in the moonlit bedroom. She forced calmness upon herself, steadying her breaths with concentrated effort. Her hand gently soothed the skin over her heart.

Edith sank back against the headboard, the heaving of her chest gradually subsiding. She stared at emptiness. But she saw those white and dead hands once more.

Hands that were clutching at David Ash.

Ash twisted in the water, perhaps to turn away from the silhouetted spectre floating towards him, perhaps to break free of the clinging weeds. Perhaps neither. He was drowning and the overwhelming awareness of that alone left little room for other terrors.

Yet through this horror of imminent death he felt an arm encircle his throat from behind.

Bubbles spewed furiously from his open mouth as he was dragged backwards. Ash struggled but his efforts were feeble, for already a mist was dulling his thoughts, a sluggishness leadening his limbs. For one brief and peculiarly lucid moment he was in another time – an instant of
déjà vu –
fighting weakly against tumbled water, a rough hand pulling at him, lifting him . . .

And he was clear, cold night air rushing at him as overwhelmingly as had the stagnant water he was now emerging from. Other hands clutched at his clothes, cruelly pinching the flesh beneath. He was rising, being hauled over the wall that encircled the moonlit pond that was no longer placid but heaving with the swell created by his own struggles. Someone was pushing him upwards from below and, as he rose, Ash glimpsed Simon’s face, wetness slicking the younger man’s hair flat against his forehead. Something hard scraped against his back and then he was lying on the uneven flag-stones, vomiting the liquid contents of his stomach and lungs.