The Haunting of Highdown Hall (7 page)

Cash,
she thought as soon as her feet touched the ground,
I’m meeting Cash today.

She was also going to Highdown Hall to meet Alan Kierney and Cynthia Hart for the first time. Excited at both prospects, she made her way to the bathroom. After a long, hot shower, the jets of water deliciously warm as they pummelled her neck and shoulders; she entered the kitchen, in dire need of caffeine. After several cups of coffee and a bowl of rice pops, she was ready to go, alert, even if artificially so.

If she walked at a brisk pace, it would take less than ten minutes to reach her office. Later, she would walk back with Cash to collect her car. And it was a pleasant walk, a walk she never tired of – past The Pelham Arms, reputedly one of the most haunted pubs in Sussex – although Ruby had never sensed anything there at all, Trevor House, a beautiful Grade II listed building that she coveted, and Lewes Old Grammar School. Dating back to the sixteenth century, she’d very much like to look inside the school building one day – to see what lingered there – a lost child perhaps, sitting at his desk, still trying to solve that wretched maths equation, or a headmaster unable to relinquish control.

She arrived outside her office just before nine, Cash a minute or so later.

“Hey,” he said, striding confidently up to her, “good to see you again.”

Ruby wondered if he was going to lean in for a hello kiss on her cheek and was both relieved and disappointed when he didn’t. Instead, he simply stood before her, a grin on his handsome face and cold hands stuffed in jean pockets.

“Follow me,” she said, turning from him to open the door before climbing the three flights of narrow stairs to the attic.

“Wow, this is... snug,” he said upon entering.

“That’s one way of putting it,” she replied, before offering him tea.

“Yeah, please, white, no sugar.”

Flicking the switch on the kettle, Ruby nodded towards her computer.

“We’re not due at Highdown Hall until after ten thirty so I thought perhaps we could spend half an hour or so looking at some websites of businesses similar to mine first, to give us a few ideas of what we could do and what to avoid.”

“Sure,” said Cash, rather presumptuously seating himself in her captain’s chair.

Grabbing a fold-up chair from the meeting table, she opened it pointedly beside him and then returned to the kettle to make the tea she had promised.

Handing him the warm mug, she said, “If I type in ‘spiritual cleansing’
or ‘house healers’, quite a few people in the same business as me come up – thing is, their websites are a bit, I don’t know how to put it, spiritual I suppose.”

“Spiritual?” Cash raised an eyebrow. “How strange!”

She ignored his sarcasm. “I want my website to be more pragmatic, down-to-earth – accessible to the masses if you like, not just the spiritually inclined.”

“Like an estate agent’s?” he said, clearly enjoying himself.

“Oh, shut up,” she too suppressed a smile. “I think you know what I mean.”

“I do,” he said, serious again. “And I agree, a more pragmatic approach seems like a really good idea. Bring it all into the 21
^st
century. I’ll get some ideas mocked up.”

“Really?” She could hardly believe her luck. “That would be great.”

Sipping at her tea, Ruby noticed the confused look that had suddenly appeared on Cash’s face.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m not sure,” he answered. “I can smell something. No, don’t worry, I don’t mean you – or me for that matter, but something. The best I can describe it as is ‘wet dog’.”

“Wet dog?” repeated Ruby, equally as perplexed for a moment before looking around. “Jed, Jed where are you boy? Are you here?”

“Er, who’s Jed?”

“The dog. You said you could smell him.”

“You’ve got a dog?”

“No. Well, yes. Sort of.”

As Cash continued to look bewildered, Ruby greeted Jed. “Oh, there you are. Where have you been? What have you been doing? You are indeed wet, you silly boy.” And then as realisation dawned, she turned back to Cash and said, “You can smell him?”

“I can smell
something
,” was Cash’s hesitant reply.

“But you said you weren’t psychic.”

“I’m not.”

“If you can smell wet dog, I wouldn’t be so sure.”

Quickly, she explained. “There is indeed a big, hairy, wet dog standing right beside us, wagging his tail. A ghost dog if you like. And you can smell him.”

Cash looked shocked. He looked as if he were about to fall off her captain’s chair and land rather heavily on the floor.

“Easy,” said Ruby, adopting Theo’s soothing voice. “It’s probably just a one-off or something. An anomaly. Nothing to worry about.”

“You’re joking with me, right?” Cash answered, far from soothed.

“Honestly, I’m not,” replied Ruby, biting down on her lip now to keep from laughing. “Ness and I did a house cleansing yesterday, to remove the spirit of a dog – and we did. Except he hasn’t gone where he’s supposed to go, he’s attached himself to me.”

Looking at Jed fondly she continued, “Not that I mind really, he’s a friendly lad and he’s proved himself to be very useful so far. But he’s got to go soon; he shouldn’t be here.”

His eyes wide and yes, she was sure of it, ever so slightly alarmed, Cash turned back to her laptop, touching base with more earthly matters – ideas for her website.

***

A short while later, Ruby and Cash walked back to her car and bundled themselves into it. The weather was still nothing less than arctic, so she turned the heater to maximum, hoping it wouldn’t take too long to warm up – sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t, it was getting temperamental in its old age. Jed, meanwhile, had disappeared again – where to, she didn’t know. Putting the Ford into gear, she pulled out of the parking space.

As she drove, she explained to Cash about the background of Highdown Hall. He nodded dutifully throughout before asking, “Have you seen any of Cynthia Hart’s movies?”

“I must have done, when I was younger, but I don’t really remember them.”

“I remember
her
,” Cash said. “Gorgeous she was; a real siren, but the movies yeah, a bit of a blur.” After a slight pause, he continued. “Hey, we should have a movie night; get to know Cynthia in the flesh so to speak. What are you doing tomorrow evening?”

Taken aback by his eagerness, she could only reply, “Erm... nothing. I don’t think.”

“Good, I’ll see if I can get a DVD of one of her films from somewhere and I’ll come round to yours. Is eight okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” she replied, wondering just how persistent Cash was going to be. As fascinated as he was by her at the moment, or with her profession at least, it wouldn’t last. It never did. In her experience, men were simple creatures at heart, they preferred simple, uncomplicated lives and hers could never be described as such. But Cash as a boyfriend? She mustn’t jump the gun. All he’d done was ask if she wanted to watch a movie with him, nothing more than that. As she carried on driving, she couldn’t help stealing a sideways glance at him. He had a good profile she noted: straight nose, firm jaw line. And that caramel skin of his, it was lovely, making her feel so pale in comparison.

“Here we are,” she said, turning off just before the village of Framfield into a country lane, “it’s just down here. Another mile or two.”

Negotiating the lane, not quite big enough for two cars to pass each other, Ruby stiffened.

“What’s wrong?” said Cash, noticing.

“Oh nothing, I can just sense there was a nasty accident on this stretch of road, a while back, a car crash.”

“How do you know?”

“Residual feelings,” said Ruby.

“Which are?” queried Cash.

“Sorry,” said Ruby, reminding herself she was in the company of a... a what? A normal person? A muggle as Harry Potter and co might have said. She endeavoured to explain.

“Residual feelings are emotions so intense they don’t easily dissipate. They become etched into the atmosphere; they become
part
of the atmosphere, replaying over and over again on the airwaves, as though caught in a loop. Does that make sense?”

“Kind of...” said Cash, although he sounded unsure.

“Anyone can pick up on residual feelings,” Ruby continued. “You don’t have to be a psychic to be able to. If you walk into a house, for example, and you get a bad feeling about that house, well, that could be because you’ve tuned into residual feelings left behind by either someone or some dramatic event that has taken place there. Most people just dismiss such feelings, they push them to the back of their minds, desensitise themselves after a while, but some take note, some listen to instinct and don’t hang around.”

Cash was nodding his head, taking it all in.

“So, what you just experienced, it’s just feelings, there’s no ghost attached?”

“No, if the spirit was still attached, we’d call it an intelligent haunting.”

Ruby smiled. It was a lot for a novice to take in.

“The thing is,” Ruby mused, “they’re a strange mix of feelings. There’s triumph and joy, but dark joy, not the kind that lifts your heart, and at the very last, just before impact I should imagine, there’s disbelief and anguish.”

“Maybe the driver had just heard his lotto numbers announced on the radio and then, in the same instance, realised he’d forgotten to buy that week’s ticket. Maybe that could account for that sense of triumph going pear-shaped?”

“Maybe,” Ruby rolled her eyes good-humouredly. Despite her previous misgivings, she was glad to have Cash along for the ride. He knew how to keep things light.

At last they reached their destination, not the house itself, but the gates to it, attached either side to sturdy stone columns, gleaming black once she imagined, now rusted in places. Tall and ornate, they had thoughtfully been left open by Mr Kierney for their arrival.

Slowing the car to a respectful speed, Ruby cruised up the driveway, admiring the expanse of well-kept green lawn on either side, which softened and blended into the trees in the distance. Rounding a corner, the house came into sight. To one side of it was a lake.

“Whoa!” said Cash, his mouth wide open. “This is some pile. I can see why the owner’s staying put, ghost or not.”

“It’s
not
a ghost, it’s a spirit,” Ruby admonished. “And Cash, please remember, Mr Kierney is extremely unsettled by events at Highdown Hall. This is not a joke to him.”

“Sorry,” said Cash, suitably contrite.

Parking the car, they walked up the last stretch of driveway, the gravel crunching beneath their feet like the rice pops she’d had for breakfast. Snap, crackle and pop. As Cash had been awed by the house, so was she. It was magnificent. Gothic in style with those stone mullioned windows Ruby had only ever seen on National Trust properties. It had a turret too, reminding her of a Scottish castle she had once visited as a child with her grandmother, somewhere in Perth, a castle beginning with a ‘B’ but whose name in its entirety escaped her for now. Although Highdown Hall was far from being a castle, it was certainly impressive, fitting for a movie star.

Reaching the main entrance, a pair of studded double doors in silvered oak, Cash whispered, “What do we do? There’s no bell.”

Ruby searched; there must be a bell. Fists banging on these doors would make no impact whatsoever.

“Oh, look.” Cash pointed to a black iron rod, also far from gleaming, with a heart shaped loop at the bottom. “I think we give this a pull.”

Before she could do so, however, the right half of the double doors swung open. Only half visible in the interior gloom was her client, Mr Kierney. As he stepped forward, Ruby got a better view of him. Not a tall man, he was rather delicate in stature, his dark hair peppered with grey and his brown eyes similarly faded.

“Thank God you’re here.” Ruby was used to such greetings.

Beckoning them into the Grand Hall, complete with timber panelling and sweeping staircase, Ruby tried not to gawp. Her entire flat could fit into this space alone, she was sure of it. Returning her attention to Mr Kierney, she noticed him wring his hands together. Clearly he was the nervous type, and even more so now thanks to Cynthia.

“Upstairs,” he said, bypassing any small talk, “it’s mainly upstairs, in what used to be her bedroom. But the whole top floor is, I don’t know,
alive
with her presence, ironically. She hates me being here, that bloody woman. And it’s not fair;” his manner was petulant almost, “this is
my
house now, not hers. God knows how Aunt Sally put up with it.”

Her eyes travelling the length of the staircase, Ruby was curious.

“Did your aunt ever report any unusual activity?” she asked.

“Well, no,” Mr Kierney looked surprised to realise this. “Not that I know of anyway. She just holed herself up here after Cynthia died, inconsolable apparently after the death of her beloved mistress. Probably a bit eccentric, like my other aunt, Esme. My mother was the only sane one amongst them.”