The Secrets of Ghosts (13 page)

‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ Gwen said. She didn’t look convinced.

‘Can’t you be happy for me? I was so worried I was going to turn out like Ruby.’

‘There are worse things,’ Gwen said, still looking worried.

‘I know that. She’s my mum, I love her, but I don’t want her life. We’re very different.’

‘Maybe this is temporary,’ Gwen said. ‘Maybe you’re just developing your intuition and this ghost-business will fade away as you learn to control it. I’ll look through the journals, again. I must’ve missed something. There must be a spell or something that can make this go away.’

‘I don’t want it to go away,’ Katie said, trying to hide her irritation.

‘It’s not natural,’ Gwen said, her lips in a thin line.

Katie wanted to point out that death was about as natural as it got, but Gwen looked too upset. ‘Come on,’ she said instead. ‘We should get back to your party. You need more champagne.’

‘It’s just sparkling wine,’ Gwen said, but she followed Katie back into the gallery.

*

The next day Katie was sitting behind the front desk, enjoying a jaw-cracking yawn, when Patrick walked into Reception. She hastily covered her mouth. ‘Katie, I’ve had a report from The Plum Suite. Could you take a look?’

‘What kind of report?’ Katie said. She still felt foggy, as if she hadn’t woken up properly. She guessed it had to be the heat since she hadn’t exactly been partying until dawn. In bed by half eleven after half a glass of sparkling wine and three orange juices. Wild.

Patrick looked significantly in the direction of the brocade two-seater sofa that sat in the bay window. A female MOP was reading the paper, a bulky handbag at her feet.

They moved into the hallway and Patrick spoke quietly. ‘Mr and Mrs Moore just checked out but Housekeeping won’t go into the room. She says it doesn’t feel right. She keeps making this sign at me and speaking in Dutch.’

‘Polish,’ Katie said. ‘Zofia’s probably speaking Polish, not Dutch. On account of that being her first language.’

‘What?’ Patrick was already distracted by something on his phone.

‘Because she’s Polish. Never mind. I’ll talk to her,’ Katie said.

He looked up. ‘And check the room?’

‘Okay. Sure.’

Katie found Zofia in the first-floor corridor, restocking a housekeeping cart from the supply closet.

‘Are you okay?’ Zofia had a round, pretty face that was usually smiling. It wasn’t now.

Zofia piled handfuls of miniature shampoo bottles onto the trolley and disappeared into the closet.

‘Patrick asked me to talk to you.’ Katie stood awkwardly by the closet door, unsure whether to follow Zofia inside. ‘About The Plum Suite. He said you had some kind of fright.’

A clattering noise indicated that Zofia was getting the industrial vacuum cleaner out.

‘Zofia?’

She appeared, dragging the machine. Katie put a hand onto her arm and Zofia froze. ‘Please. I need to talk to you.’

Zofia stared at the vacuum but she stopped moving away.

‘It’s about the room. The Plum Suite.’

‘I’m not cleaning that room.’ Zofia shook her head, still not looking at Katie. ‘I’m sorry. Tell Mr Patrick I’m sorry but I’m not cleaning. He must—’

‘It’s okay. You don’t have to. I’m here to help.’

Zofia looked at her then and Katie flinched from the naked panic in her eyes. ‘You mustn’t!’ Zofia said. ‘Stay out. Lock the door. It’s no good now. No one can stay in there. No point cleaning, no point.’

‘Zofia,’ Katie said gently, ‘I can help with what you saw in the room. Can you tell me about it?’

‘No. Not good to talk about it. Very bad.’

‘But if you could just tell me what you saw? It would be helpful.’

Zofia closed her lips into a tight line and made the sign of the devil. Then she moved down the hall to plug in the vacuum.

Marvellous
.

Katie went upstairs to The Plum Suite. She opened the door using her universal keycard and had a quick look around. The room was reasonably clean and tidy; Zofia had obviously started on her housekeeping before whatever scared her did its thing. Either that, or Mr and Mrs Moore were the cleanest guests in the history of hostelry.

The suite consisted of an enormous bedroom, the walls painted a muted mustard that should’ve looked horrible against the dark purple soft furnishings but somehow didn’t. The furniture was dark wood, antique and very heavy. Katie’s eye was taken by the gigantic triple wardrobe. It had two full-length mirrors either side of a central unit that was filled with drawers of differing depths. She could see herself in the edge of one of the mirrors, the burgundy flash of her uniform. She moved over and regarded herself, wondering why it always felt different to look in a mirror that wasn’t your own. She had a full-length mirror bolted to the wall of her bedroom, but the room was about a third of the size of this one and she supposed she was always a lot closer to the mirror when she was checking out her outfit.

Katie turned to the side and smoothed down the tabard. She quite liked the way it looked, almost like a sixties mini-dress. Maybe in a different colour... Katie caught sight of movement in the other mirror. She glanced across and just managed to stop herself from screaming. It was the girl from the wedding. Violet. She’d just appeared in the room. Instantly materialised from nowhere. If there had been any doubt in Katie’s mind, it evaporated. Violet was a ghost.

‘What are you doing?’ Violet said. Her voice sounded normal. Real.

Katie forced herself to look away from the image in the mirror and at the person standing a couple of feet to her left. ‘Hello again,’ she said, marvelling at how steady her voice was.

‘I don’t like your clothes,’ Violet said. ‘You could borrow something of mine, if you like.’

‘Um,’ Katie said. Violet was still wearing exactly the same as before, down to the beaded headband. Katie supposed if you ended up as a ghost, you stayed in the same clothes. Were they the clothes you died in or the clothes you imagined yourself wearing? Katie had so many questions, but she settled for, ‘What are you doing here?’

Violet’s forehead creased lightly. ‘It’s my house.’

Katie wanted to say ‘not any more’ but that seemed unfeeling.

‘This is my bedroom,’ Violet said, looking around. ‘Was my bedroom. I don’t need one any more. I don’t sleep. And I’m too old for my doll’s house.’

Katie blinked. Where the desk with telephone and hotel stationery had been a second ago, there was a massive doll’s house. It had tiny leaded glass windows, a couple of which were half open.

‘What did you do to Zofia?’

‘The maid?’

‘Housekeeping assistant,’ Katie corrected automatically. ‘We don’t say “maid” any more.’

Violet sniffed. ‘Same job.’

‘What did you do to her?’

Violet walked to the doll’s house and crouched down in front of it. ‘I used to spend hours with this. Hours.’

‘Zofia?’ Katie said.

‘I can’t open the doors now, though. It’s very frustrating.’ Violet reached out. Her fingers looked solid enough to Katie, but Violet was having difficulty in getting them to hook around the edge of the house. ‘Can you help me?’

Despite the weirdness of the situation, Katie was suddenly curious to look inside the doll’s house. She hunkered down next to Violet and attempted to open the front. It was the kind that the entire front should swing out, forwards, but it became more nebulous as soon as she tried to touch it. Her fingers hit something solid and she was excited for exactly one second before she realised she’d just hit the chair that was tucked underneath the desk. She could see them through the image of the doll’s house, now.

‘I don’t think it’s really here. That’s why neither of us can touch it.’

‘But why am I here?’ Violet said. ‘Why aren’t I in the same place as my doll’s house?’

Exactly the question Katie had been planning to ask. But if Violet didn’t know, who would?

‘I’m bored to sobs,’ Violet was saying. ‘You have no idea.’

‘Is that why you frightened Zofia? Because you were bored?’

‘Who’s Zofia?’

‘The maid. Housekeeping assistant.’

‘Oh, her. I was just experimenting. I blew into her ear.’ Violet pursed her lips to demonstrate. ‘I didn’t know if it would work.’

‘Well, you really scared her,’ Katie said. ‘It wasn’t very kind.’

Violet turned and gave her a disgusted look. ‘You shouldn’t be so concerned about her. Maids see everything, you know. When you think you’re alone and your face falls because you’ve just been gutted like a fish, your maid sees it. And don’t ever think they’re your friends. They’re not on your side, not even for a second. They’ll sell you out in a heartbeat.’ Violet walked to the bed. The floaty movement gave Katie a headache.

‘Can’t you just, I don’t know, move on?’

‘How? I can’t leave the house. I’ve tried. I can walk as far as the pond and then I wake up back in the house. In the cellar, actually, which is rather embarrassing. Not to mention grubby.’

Violet had a very refined accent, the word ‘rather’ coming out ‘raaathar’.

‘Not move out of the house, move on. You know, into the light or something.’

Violet gave her a sudden, piercing look. ‘Die, you mean? Properly?’

‘Um—’

‘No, thank you. A shred of life is better than none at all. Just you wait, you’d be the same in my position.’

Katie swallowed. She hoped, fervently, not to find out.

‘But if you’re so bored,’ Katie began.

‘What do we have here?’ Violet had floated over to the bed and was peering at the padded headboard. ‘A hair. A long brown hair.’ She tried to pluck something from the fabric surface but couldn’t.

‘Left by Mrs Moore, I imagine. You frightened Zofia away before she could turn the room around.’

Violet flapped a hand. ‘She’s fine. I didn’t really frighten her.’ Her face turned petulant. ‘Why are you so worried about her? What about me? In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m dead. It’s not fair.’

The shimmering was worse and Katie felt as if she was going to be sick. ‘What can I do?’

Violet didn’t answer; she was still trying to pick up the hair from the pillow, watching her own ghostly fingers intently.

Katie wanted to ask Violet the obvious question, but she wasn’t sure how. She plumped for the direct approach. ‘How did you die?’

‘Rude girl,’ Violet said, but she smiled. She really was extraordinarily pretty.

‘Did somebody hurt you?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Violet turned away, the movement strange and fluid, as if Violet were becoming a little more insubstantial and ghost-like. ‘I imagine that’s why I’m still here. I’m probably supposed to be absolutely furious about it, but I can’t seem to summon the feeling any more. It’s funny how these things just fade away.’

‘Violet,’ Katie tried again. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Why don’t you look it up?’ Violet said. ‘Violet Leticia Anne Beaufort.’ And then she disappeared.

*

Across town at End House, Gwen Harper closed her eyes and wished that, just once, she could swap her power from ‘finding lost things’ to ‘shutting people up’. Amanda had been going non-stop since she arrived and Gwen’s head was still pounding from the white wine at the opening the night before. She closed her eyes and lightly massaged her temples.

Amanda had covered the shockingly narrow aisles at their local small supermarket, her mother’s weird obsession with linen napkins, and something about a C-list celebrity who’d been photographed with, as far as Gwen could gather, a B-list celebrity. Which made it news, apparently. She tried to tune Amanda out, just for a moment, just to let the pain in her head abate a little. She’d had some tea and about three pints of water, surely—

‘What about the chalk man in Dorset? You could visit him.’

Gwen opened her eyes. ‘Chalk man?’

‘Like the white horse. Only a man. With a massive willy.’

‘Ah.’ Gwen closed her eyes again. She had a horrible feeling she knew what Amanda was going to say next.

‘You shag on it. You and Cam, I mean. It’s supposed to cure infertility.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Oh, everyone knows that. It was in the paper and everything.’

‘A chalk man. On a hillside.’ Gwen tried not to show her distress. Amanda was only trying to help. And it was her own fault for confiding in Amanda in a moment of weakness. She should’ve been more like Iris and kept her thoughts firmly confined to her journals.

‘The fertility rates around the hill are above national average — all the women around there have, like, three kids each. At least. It’s been proven.’

‘I really don’t want to talk about this,’ Gwen said. ‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t.’

Amanda put her hand on Gwen’s arm. ‘I know it’s painful, but talking can help. And surely anything is worth a try. I’d have thought you’d be open—’

‘How are your kids?’ Gwen interrupted Amanda with the topic of conversation guaranteed to distract her.

Amanda pulled a face. ‘Monsters. Milo has decided five is the best time to start the day and Lucy refuses to poo in the toilet.’

‘That sounds—’

‘She’s trained, I mean, she’s able to hold it, but she won’t do it unless I put a nappy on her.’ Amanda shook her head. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.’

‘Indeed,’ Gwen said.

‘Oh, crap.’ Amanda clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—’

‘It’s fine,’ Gwen said. She busied herself by topping up their cups from the teapot. Chamomile with essence of burdock.

‘Can’t you cure yourself?’ Amanda didn’t seem to be able to leave the subject alone. She’d always been the kind of woman to wedge her foot so firmly into her own mouth that the only conceivable option was to keep on pushing, perhaps in the hope that it would eventually appear out the other end.

‘Apparently not.’ Gwen thought of the spells she’d tried, the herbal remedies she’d downed. She’d had enough evening primrose and dandelion root to last her a lifetime.

‘It’ll happen,’ Amanda said, cosy certainty in her voice. ‘Maybe if you stop trying. Lots of people find that. They give up, and they adopt or just decided it’s not happening or whatever, and then they get pregnant—’ she clicked her fingers ‘—like that.’