Pascoe's Ghost

by Hill, Reginald;

  From the bed Heathcliff, deprived of my warm feet, howled piteously but stopped in mid-note and I saw his dark outline rise, his back arch, his tail fluff out hugely like instant back-combing and his small aristocratic (so he claimed) head point accusingly at the window.

  I had heard nothing for some moments, indeed had begun to half hope, half believe that the stealthy treader had been nothing more than an insomniac sheep. But Heathcliff if nothing else is a good barometer of foreign presence, and while a sheep might disturb him it wouldn’t frighten him. Now with sinking heart I saw my loyal and intelligent pet sum up the situation, step daintily off the bed and disappear beneath it.

  Next moment any remaining doubts and hopes were dispersed. I slept with my windows slightly open, partly because of an inherited spartan morality, partly to allow Heathcliff ease of exit, without which he would brutally waken me whenever the urge came on him to clamber over the sill on to the roof of the old single-storeyed farm dairy below and thence to whatever strange trysts he kept on this barren windswept fellside. Tonight the air was comparatively still, hardly enough to flutter the heavy curtains which I had hung to prevent my much-needed sleep from being broken by the morning sun. But now the curtains flapped cumbersomely inward. The window from being ajar a cat’s breadth had been pushed wide open, and through the gap between the curtains I saw not the bright star-studded sky, contemplation of which had filled me with adolescent nostalgia three hours earlier, but the shape, monstrous and menacing, of a man, arms raised and spread as he grasped the lintel and dragged himself from the dairy roof on to the sill.

  I opened my mouth to say something cool and controlled, instead heard a thin, terrified squeak emerge. He paused, then began to move forward again. His left leg was athwart the sill now. My squeak became a full-blooded scream and I rushed forward, pushed the gun into his face and pulled the trigger.

  At that range his head would have been sliced off his shoulders if the cartridge had fired. But all that I heard was a hollow click. Still screaming, I hit him full on the nose with the weapon and either the force of my attack or the noise I was making sent him falling backwards. I thrust my head through the window and saw him lying spreadeagled on the dairy roof. The moon was full and we stared at each other for a long moment. I wished that I had my glasses on so that I could have got a better view of him. Already I was thinking of identity parades and the doubtful pleasure of seeing him put away for a fort-night or whatever the maximum sentence is for the trivial offence of attempted rape. He had a beard, that I could make out, light brown and very curly, perhaps too curly for nature. Also a big nose.

  Suddenly he smiled, I saw that clearly. It was a win-a-few, lose-a-few smile which filled me with even greater fury than his attempted break-in. As he pushed himself upright, I remembered I had another barrel still untried. I brought the gun to bear on him; the smile disappeared; he turned and ran to the edge of the roof and as he leapt into space I squeezed the trigger.

  This time there was no hollow click but a deafening cordite-stinking explosion and the gun’s kick almost knocked me backwards. I’d never fired the weapon at anything more animate than a dead tree before, but I knew that a twelve-bore loaded with no. 5 shot spread so wide that it was hard for even a tyro to miss.

  Oh God! I thought, my fury fading faster than the sound of the shot which came bouncing back off the surrounding fells. Oh God! I’ve killed him!

  Then he reappeared, running swiftly through the moonlit field behind the house, his feet kicking up little clouds of silver-edged vapour from the grass. It was an uphill run but he seemed to be making light work of it and I sighed with relief. No seriously wounded man could have moved like that. My aim must have been worse than I had believed possible. Perhaps a few stray pellets had peppered his backside, but nothing more.

  I was beginning to shake now with reaction, and after firmly fastening the window I put on the light and went downstairs to check on my defences and treat myself to a large brandy and five or six cigarettes. I had no telephone at High Ghyll so I would have to wait till morning before I reported what had happened. My car was parked outside but I had no intention of setting off down the long rough track to the main road before full daylight.

  Meanwhile it seemed a good idea to reload, so I broke the twelve-bore to remove the cartridges. Instantly I saw why the first barrel had not gone off, and incidentally why the prowler’s head was still intact. Out of my dressing-table drawer in the dark I had taken one cartridge and one cylinder of witch-green eye make-up.

  Somehow this discovery restored my spirits even more than the brandy and I returned to bed feeling surprisingly ready and able to sleep. My decision had been anticipated and approved by Heathcliff, who was back in his usual position on the foot of the bed, snoring gently. I tickled his tummy and went to bed feeling quite affectionately disposed to him, despite his recent cowardice. Heathcliff himself, of course, was quite indifferent to the vagaries of human feeling, a fact that he proved by butting me awake at six a.m., protesting that the window was closed and he couldn’t get out.

  Yawning, I rose and threw back the curtains. The morning was misty and the sun’s imminence was marked only by a generalized effulgence, but strong enough to bode a good day. I opened the window wide and sucked in a good lungful of cold damp air.

  Then I noticed with horror that Heathcliff wasn’t going out but was doing his back-arching, tail-fluffing act again.

  “Oh no!” I cried, turning for the twelve-bore. But it was too late. His clothes sodden from hours of waiting crouched beneath my window and with dewdrops glinting in his beard, the man was in the room. As my hand reached the gun, he grasped me by the hair and drew me back. I was shrieking hysterically but my mind was cool enough to register Heathcliff stepping daintily through the window without a backward glance.

  Most men don’t believe in rape. Without some degree of consent it’s not possible, so the apologists claim. Well, bully for them. The stupidity of vast areas of masculine opinion I have, like most women, quietly adjusted to. But though I had read about it and indeed written about it, I had not fully appreciated the degree to which this particular bit of nonsense had biased the law.

  I thought it best not to be mealy-mouthed so I told the first police constable I encountered in the station that I’d been raped.

  He was very young and he blushed slightly, then asked me if I’d like to sit down. I did and he went away. After that two other young men came out of offices and peered at me from a distance. I had decided to be controlled and detached to ward off motherly offers of tea and sympathy, but I had not expected to be an object of vulgar curiosity.

  Finally I was taken to a small windowless room where a seedy detective-sergeant called Ambler started asking questions while a poker-faced WPC sat very upright by the door.

  “Name,” he said.

  “Grant. Mrs. Cora Grant.”

  “Address.”

  “At the moment, High Ghyll Farm, Gosforth.”

  “Permanent address.”

  Beginning to feel exasperated, I gave him my London address.

  “How long have you been staying at High Ghyll, Mrs. Grant?”

  “Just since Saturday.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah,” he said, writing at greater length than either the question or my answer seemed to make necessary. Perhaps it was the blotchy ballpoint he was using.

  “You own the farmhouse?”

  “Yes,” I said, then amended, “That is, it belongs to my former husband and myself. We’re divorced, but we’ve kept High Ghyll as a holiday home.”

  An uneasy compromise, I could have added, after months of each trying to buy the other out. Now we had a strict timetable of visits and left each other sniping notes about the disgusting state in which we found the place.

  “Divorced,” said Ambler, scribbling again. “Where can we contact Mr. Grant?”

  “Mr. Grant? You can’t. He’s dead.”

  Th
is stopped the erratic pen for a moment.

  “But you said …”

  “Mr. Grant was my first husband. He died three years ago. I remarried but kept my previous name for professional purposes,” I explained.

  “Ah. Widowed,” he said and the pen was off again.

  “So where can we get hold of your ex-husband, Mr. …?”

  “Lincoln. James Lincoln.”

  My nastier friends (the only ones worth having) had opined that I was only attracted to men with the names of American presidents in the hope of ending up with a Kennedy. With my luck I’d get a Nixon.

  “Why should you want to get hold of him?” I went on. “I haven’t seen Jimmy since the divorce. He works in Manchester, I work in London. We don’t want to see each other. The thing is, we don’t even like each other. So let’s keep Jimmy out of this and concentrate on this maniac who’s just raped me!”

  He scribbled again, a single word. His writing and the awful pen didn’t make it easy to read upside down but it looked very like “hysterical.” I couldn’t fault him. He was right. That was just how I was beginning to feel.

  “Look, don’t you want to know what happened?” I demanded.

  “Of course we do, Mrs. Grant. But just a few more details. You said you kept your name for professional reasons. What profession would that be?”

  “I’m a journalist,” I said.

  “Journalist,” he said. He had a very unpleasant way of making single words vibrate with piled-up overtones of meaning.

  “Yes. I’m a freelance mainly. You may even have read some of my pieces in the Sunday papers.”

  “Sunday papers.” I have never heard the sabbath touched with such intimations of depravity.

  There was a knock at the door. The WPC rose, opened it six inches and slid out. A few seconds later she slid back in.

  “The doctor’s here,” she said.

  “Good,” said Ambler, rising. “Mrs. Grant, you realize that it’s necessary for you to have a medical examination.”

  I suppose I did in a way. But what I realized even more clearly was that Ambler hadn’t been in a hurry to get on with the main business on the agenda until it was firmly established that there was any main business to get on with.

  The doctor was a slow, deliberate man who looked old enough to have started his career as a barber.

  He showed some signs of distress at what had taken place, but mainly after rather than during the assault.

  “You’ve had a bath?” he said disapprovingly.

  “Yes. And a douche,” I answered. “What do you expect? It was the first thing I did after he went.”

  He continued his examination, shaking his head ponderously as he did so.

  Back in the interview room I smoked a cigarette and tried to squeeze some conversation out of the WPC while Ambler had a conference with the doctor.

  Finally he returned.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  I told him.

  “You didn’t think of going for help the first time he came?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t going to leave the house!” I assured him. “I was locked up, safe and sound.”

  “But you opened your window in the morning,” he said.

  “That was to let the cat out,” I protested. “I never thought he’d come back. To tell you the truth, I’d half forgotten about him.”

  “Forgotten,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That was shortly after six. Yet it was nearly nine when you came to the station.”

  “Yes. After he left, I locked the window again. Then I just sat around for a while, smoking, drinking. I couldn’t believe it had happened, I suppose. Then when it finally got through to me, I ran a bath and just lay there soaking for God knows how long.”

  “Yes. The doctor said you’d had a bath,” he said neutrally.

  “I felt filthy,” I protested. “I just wanted to lie there for ever. Finally I got dressed, let Heathcliff, my cat, in and gave him his breakfast …”

  “You gave your cat his breakfast,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said defensively. “It’s very difficult not to give a cat his breakfast. They’re very insistent. After that I got in the car and drove here.”

  “I see. Why didn’t you go to the local constable?”

  “I did,” I said triumphantly. “But he wasn’t in. So I drove on into town. I thought that anyway I’d need to come here for the full treatment.”

  “For the full treatment,” he said. This time I sympathized with him. It had been a poor choice of phrase.

  “This man,” he said. “Did you know him?”

  “I told you, I’d never seen him before.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  I did the best I could. Brown curly hair and beard, big nose, medium height, well built.

  “Clothes?” he asked.

  “Some kind of cord trousers,” I said. “Brown. And a brown leather jerkin.”

  “I see. No more detail than that?” he asked. “Did the jerkin have a zip or buttons? Was there any design on it, any of these hell’s angels things, for instance? Skull and crossbones? Born to die?”

  “No,” I said. “Though it’s probably peppered with a bit of shot.”

  “I thought you said you missed,” he said.

  “I don’t think I hurt him, but I don’t think I could have missed altogether.”

  “He gave no impression of being wounded when he was … er…”

  “No, he bloody didn’t!”

  “I see,” said Ambler. “I’ll want to see that gun when I come up to the farm, of course.”

  “You don’t have to go that far,” I answered. “I’ve got it in the car.”

  “What?” For the first time he showed an emotion other than sceptical diffidence.

  “Yes,” I said. “You didn’t think I was going to go out of the house without it, did you?”

  “Can we have your keys, Mrs. Grant?”

  “No need. It’s not locked, Sergeant.”

  The WPC rose. As she went out I called after her, “It’s on the passenger seat.”

  Ambler drummed his fingers on the desk.

  “We hope it’s on the passenger seat, Mrs. Grant,” he said ominously. “You do have a licence?”

  “A licence,” I said, playing him at his own cunning game. “Perhaps we should wait till we see if I still have a gun. Tell me, Sergeant, is there any chance that you might eventually start investigating this crime?”

  “I don’t follow you, Mrs. Grant. I’m getting your statement down. It’s important we establish the facts.”

  “Yes indeed,” I said indignantly. “Though it’s becoming clear that my facts and your facts aren’t altogether coinciding!”

  The WPC returned with my shotgun. Ambler took it from her and cautiously sniffed at the barrels.

  “It’s been fired,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Fortunately I didn’t take that into the bath with me.”

  “No,” he said. “Well, it’s as well you made a mistake with the loading first time, Mrs. Grant. This is a powerful weapon. The consequences could have been serious.”

  Something in my expression must finally have got through to him for he hastily changed the subject, saying in an almost conciliatory tone, “I don’t know your work, I’m afraid, Mrs. Grant.”

  “No,” I said. “I tend to write features for the more intellectual papers.”

  “Really?” he said, un-put-down. “What have you done recently?”

  “Mainly a series of three articles in one of the colour supplements. I’m sorry you missed them.”

  “What were they about?” he asked.

  “Rape,” I said.

  At last I had got to him.

  “Rape,” he echoed. “Oh. From what point of view? I mean …”

  “Generally speaking,” I said, “I was against it.”

  That night I went to the theatre. In the circumstances it might seem a curious th
ing to do. Sergeant Ambler certainly looked at me disapprovingly and said “Theatre” when I mentioned it to him. This obviously confirmed his growing suspicion that I was not so much a hysterically hallucinating woman as a cold and calculating journalist paving the way to a profitable personal-angle follow-up to my “rape” articles. Still, give the police their due, they went through the motions and I went back to High Ghyll accompanied by Ambler (for my protection) and the WPC (for Ambler’s, I supposed). To tell the truth, I was glad of their company though Heathcliff made it clear that he did not welcome the intrusion.

  Ambler looked sagely around my bedroom and even climbed through the window on to the dairy roof. Out of the police station, much of his seediness seemed to disappear and he responded to the chilly air of the fells as though to a tonic. In his case I felt it was a pity that generally speaking crime is a sea-level activity.

  “He went across the field?” he said.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  The field ran away from the house at an increasingly steep angle so that by the time it reached the drystone wall at its far end, grazing animals needed to be equipped with great tenacity of purpose. But it was recognizably a field, fairly even of surface and carpeted with long lushgreen grass. Beyond the wall, the terrain was unequivocably fellside.

  “Did you see him climb the wall?”

  “No. It’s too far. It was dark and I didn’t have my specs.”

  “I see. Is all this land yours?”

  “Oh no. Just the house and that patch of grass as far as the end of the dairy. It was tumbling down when we bought it, no one had lived here for years.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “What will you do now?” I asked.

  “Check round to see if we can find where he came from. If he had a car, he must have left it somewhere within walking distance. You’d have heard anything coming up the lonning, I suppose?”

  “Oh, certainly,” I said. “Noise carries up here, especially strange noises.”

  “He could be living out, of course,” continued Ambler. “Camping, perhaps. We’ll check that, too. If he is, well it’s a pity you didn’t get on to us quicker. As it is, he’d got a couple of hours’ start before we began looking.”