‘Don’t be,’ Harry said. ‘I understand that this has been a pretty terrible week for the whole family. So, it’s fine, I promise you.’
‘If you don’t mind, I’ll go and see how she is,’ Dan said.
Harry gave a nod and watched the man leave. Then he rested his gaze back on James. ‘So, in your own time, if that’s okay. There’s no rush here. You just tell us what you saw and we’ll see what we’ve got.’
James Fletcher stood up, then walked over to the large bay windows, staring out into the thick darkness beyond.
‘I know that everyone thinks I’m mad,’ he said, ‘and I understand that, but I’m telling you, it was Helen.’
‘Where, exactly?’ Harry asked.
‘Probably easier if I show you,’ James said. ‘Come on.’
James led Harry and Matt back out of the lounge, down the hall, and to the door at the back of the house, grabbing a torch from a shelf to the left of the door. He tried it and the beam which came out was little more than the death throes of whatever battery was powering it.
‘Use mine,’ said a voice from down the hall and Harry saw Dan looking over at them. ‘It’s pitch black out there. I brought my own with us because I’ve experienced using James’ torches before, and they’re always a little bit, shall we say, temperamental.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with any of them!’ James said, lifting up the one he was holding. ‘And this one has done me well for years!’
‘Exactly.’ Dan smiled. ‘It’s ancient. Anyway, be careful. We don’t want to have to call an ambulance next, do we?’
James replaced his torch and grabbed Dan’s, switching it on as they stepped outside. The light flared out, bright and clear, and as James cast it around in front of him, Harry watched the beam cut through the dark up onto the fells beyond the garden.
‘My shed’s over there,’ James said, bringing the beam over to shine on a cabin, which to Harry looked more like somewhere you’d spend a week or two on holiday, rather than a place in which to do a bit of gardening.
‘This is certainly a bit grander than mine, I have to say,’ Matt said, as they entered the cabin.
Inside, the space was laid out in a very ordered fashion, with bespoke shelving and a workbench, a small stove in the corner, an armchair on which rested a book, and Harry remembered then what James had said earlier about Helen. Along one wall hung the most beautifully maintained garden tools Harry had ever seen. Which wasn’t saying much, seeing as he’d never actually owned any himself.
‘I was in my chair,’ James said, walking over to stand beside it. ‘I was reading and a movement caught my eye, out of that window there.’
Harry glanced at the window but couldn’t see anything through it, the night seemingly growing darker by the minute.
‘And what did you do?’ Matt asked.
‘I’m an inquisitive old bugger,’ James said, ‘so I had a look.’
‘Could it have been your daughter or her husband?’ Harry asked.
James shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
Harry nodded at this but thought he might check himself. ‘You’re sure?’ he asked.
‘Pat and Dan, they wouldn’t come down here,’ James said. ‘They’ve no need. And Ruth and Anthony are over in the cottage.’
‘Ruth and Anthony?’ Harry queried.
‘My youngest daughter and her son,’ James explained. ‘They live in the small house next door. You’ll have seen it as you came up the lane.’
‘So, you went to the window and saw something,’ Matt said, attempting to keep James focused on what he had called them out for.
‘And there was nothing there,’ James said. ‘So, I went outside, just to make sure. We’re right out in the country here. And I know there’s the main road at the bottom of the front garden, but round here, we’re pretty exposed. It’s just wilderness, isn’t it? And anyone could just walk in off the fells if they really wanted to.’
Harry said, ‘And that’s when you saw . . .’
‘I know, it sounds crazy,’ James said, shaking his head. ‘But it was her, my wife, I’m sure of it. It’s not like she’s someone I wouldn’t recognise, is it?’
‘Did you see her face?’ Harry asked.
James paused, then said, ‘No. I just saw her going over towards the house. Well, not the house exactly, but the bit in the middle, between the two.’
‘Can you describe who you saw exactly?’ Matt asked. ‘What they were wearing?’
As James started to answer, Harry gave a nod to Matt to continue and turned and headed back outside. Behind him, he could feel the presence of the hills, as though their ancient silence was something ringing inside his head. He turned to stare at them, able to make them out only as a thicker darkness than that which sat above in the sky. It was lonely out here, he thought, and he wondered how he would cope if he’d seen an intruder. Throw in a recent bereavement and he fully understood why James Fletcher had been so bothered by it. It was obvious that what he had seen hadn’t been his wife, though there was clearly no convincing the man otherwise. But that didn’t matter, Harry thought. Something had spooked him, the man was adamant he had seen a figure in the garden, and if all their presence did was reassure him, then that was a job well done.
Harry looked over towards the house, his eyes tracing the building’s lines along to where they were cut off so abruptly by the space between it and the smaller cottage by its side. Leaving James in the more than capable hands of his detective sergeant, he took a stroll over to have a look for himself.
Between the larger main house and the smaller cottage, Harry found the darkness of the night to be, if at all possible, even thicker, and he wished that he had brought a torch with him. He pulled his phone out, flicked through to the light, and switched it on, but the faint beam did little if anything to cut through the blackness that seemed so thick now that it was as though he was wading through it.
The walls of the two buildings loomed over him and Harry felt then, for the most fleeting of moments, that he was being watched. Quashing this unease immediately, remembering numerous other times back in the Paras, when the dark had played tricks on his mind in considerably more frightening conditions, Harry forced a laugh, but it came up out of him like a thing broken and afraid. Just what the hell was wrong with him? he thought.
The space between the buildings wasn’t simply a flat area of ground, as Harry had expected it to be, but a sunken garden, as though there had once been a cellar between the buildings perhaps, though that did strike him as a little odd. There was a small flight of stone steps leading down into a courtyard of flagstones populated by potted plants. It was an odd space, Harry thought, and only added to the eerie feel of the place, and he couldn’t escape the sense of unease tracing its thin, cold fingers of bone down his spine.
‘Boss?’
Matt’s voice had Harry stop and he turned to see his detective sergeant at the top of the stone steps, accompanied by James Fletcher, approaching him, the beam from the torch cutting a bright stencil of light out on the ground.
‘So, this person you say you saw, they went down here, then,’ Harry said, walking back up to meet Matt and James. ‘Between the houses? Bit dangerous isn’t it?’
‘There are lights,’ James said. ‘Solar ones, but they’re not very good if there’s not been that much sun.’
‘Perhaps you should think about replacing them,’ Harry suggested.
‘I followed her,’ James said, ‘down to where you were a moment ago, then out the other side, but when I got to the lawn, she was gone.’
‘And how far away from this person were you when you chased after them?’ Harry asked.
‘She was just entering this bit here, the cut-through between the houses, when I came out of my shed,’ James said.
Harry walked back down into the sunken garden, then out the other side until he was at the front of the house. Lights splayed out across the lawn from the windows, and above, he caught the faint
est glimpse of the moon as it peaked out from behind a thick cloud, only to disappear again immediately after, as though trying to stay out of sight.
Matt and James joined Harry.
‘It’s a lovely place, Mr Fletcher,’ Harry said, facing the house now, then he pointed at the cottage, which lay to their left. ‘That looks to me like it used to be attached, to the main house, I mean.’
‘It was,’ James said. ‘The sunken garden was a bit of the old cellar I think. Runs the length of the larger house, still.’
‘Strange thing to do then, knock down the bit in the middle.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ James said.
For a moment, the three men stood staring up at the house. Then James stepped forward and turned to face Harry and Matt.
‘I appreciate you coming out,’ he said. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but all I can tell you is what I saw. And I’m not one for lying or misleading people.’
‘And I’ve a good description of the person you saw, now,’ Matt said.
Harry was about to ask if there was anyone else that James thought the intruder could be, but decided it was best to just leave things as they were, for now. ‘Well, we’ll be leaving now,’ he said. ‘And, like I said when we arrived, we really are sorry for your loss. It’s a terrible thing that happened, Mr Fletcher. And I think it’s good that you have family close by at a time like this.’
‘Yes, family is everything, really, isn’t it?’ James said.
A few minutes later, with their farewells said to James, and having quickly checked with Patricia and her husband that they had not been out in the garden when James said he had seen the woman, Harry was sat in the car, waiting for Matt. Chasing ghosts was certainly something he had never had to do before as part of his job, and it was another surprise that Wensleydale had obviously decided to lay on for him. He couldn’t help but feel for James, and Harry had no doubt that the poor man was just suffering terribly from the loss of his wife, his mind desperate to see her in every shadow, every movement of a leaf or branch.
Matt climbed into the car.
‘Nothing to report,’ Matt said, having just popped around to the cottage to check if James’ other daughter had seen anything strange or out of the ordinary. ‘In fact, me turning up at the door was the first that Ruth had heard about it.’
‘Really?’ Harry said. ‘I would’ve thought Patricia would’ve let her know. Seems a little strange.’
Matt clipped himself in and started the car. ‘Well, with what’s happened, I reckon we can forgive them a little strangeness, don’t you, Boss?’
‘Agreed,’ Harry said and glanced at his watch. ‘Looks like I’m going to be back just in time to go straight to bed.’
As Matt eased the car quietly down the drive, back to the main road, he asked, ‘So, what do you think he actually saw, then?’
‘Well, it wasn’t his wife, was it, that’s for sure,’ Harry said. ‘Could’ve been anything. Grief and stress, they can really play on your mind, make it think and see things it shouldn’t, or that aren’t actually there.’
Matt went to say something, then stopped himself, instead focusing on the road ahead as he pulled out to head back to Hawes.
‘What?’ Harry asked.
‘Oh, nowt, really,’ Matt said.
‘You sure about that?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Matt said, but as they headed back, the detective sergeant was strangely quiet, and Harry was left to wonder what would bother the man enough to keep quiet about it.
Chapter Nine
It was Saturday evening, only five days since her mum had been killed, and Ruth was at the door of her dad’s house, with Patricia and Dan, staring into the face of a woman standing on the doorstep who was all smiles, flowing scarves, and bangles. Her black hair shone with an almost iridescent blue.
None of them had time for this, what with the funeral to be getting on with, which was proving to be one of the most upsetting things she’d ever had to do in her whole life. The time had both flown and dragged, which sounded impossible, she knew, but that was really the only way to explain it. The minutes and hours and days had dragged by, as though being pulled through tar, they’d had visits from the police, the minister, well-wishers, and then there had been that odd episode with Dad saying he’d seen Mum. And yet, here they were, at the weekend, and it felt then as though the time had raced past, as though the death of her mum was already so long ago. And what they were dealing with now, this new arrival, well, it was, in almost every possible way, Ruth thought, just too bloody much to be going on with.
‘I don’t believe this at all,’ Patricia said, and Ruth found herself agreeing with her sister for once. ‘He called you? I mean, he actually called you and asked you to come over here, but didn’t tell us, his family?’
‘Yes,’ the woman said, and held out her business card. Ruth saw that the image on it, behind the woman’s name, was of a dreamcatcher. ‘He rang yesterday and asked if I could come over. I don’t usually do weekend visits, but he was very insistent. I can come some other time, if that suits you better? But perhaps, if I could just chat with James, your father, first?’
‘I’m sure he was insistent,’ Ruth said. ‘He can be quite persuasive. But I just don’t think this is all that sensible.’
‘Not sensible?’ Patricia said. ‘It’s absolutely bloody ridiculous is what it is! And to not even tell us? It’s not on, it really isn’t. We’re all grieving, and he does this? Honestly, I’m lost for words.’
‘Well, there’s no point going off on one about it, is there?’ Ruth said, taking a swipe at her sister. At first, she’d appreciated their visit, but it hadn’t taken long for the novelty to wear off.
‘I’m just saying what I see,’ Patricia snapped back. ‘Whatever is going on with him, he needs help, yes, professional help, actually. And this most certainly isn’t that!’
Ruth took the woman’s business card and stared at it. Not at her name, because right now that wasn’t important. It was her supposed profession that was bothering her, bothering them all.
Dan said, ‘I think Patricia has a point, Ruth. This does seem a little off. We all know that your dad’s going through it, but this, well, I can’t see how it’s going to do him any good at all, can you? It’s not healthy.’
Ruth said nothing to Dan. Like her father, she’d never really found him that easy to get on with, as though there was always something going on behind the words he was saying.
‘You’re a medium, then,’ Ruth said.
‘Yes,’ the woman nodded, then held out her hand. ‘Beverly Sanford.’
Ruth ignored the hand. ‘And what is that exactly? A medium, I mean?’
‘I’ll tell you what it is,’ Patricia said, interrupting. ‘It’s criminal, that’s what!’
‘Patricia, you need to calm down,’ Dan said, and Ruth was sure that the voice was just a little condescending, though she wasn’t sure that the tone was actually aimed at his wife.
‘It’s preying on people’s grief,’ Patricia continued. ‘A con, hocus pocus nonsense! You should be arrested, you know! They used to burn people like you and I’m beginning to see why!’
‘Perhaps I should go,’ Beverly said and turned to leave.
‘No,’ Ruth said, then looked at Patricia, and taking a deep breath, said, ‘I think Dad’s out in his shed. If not, he’ll be in his study.’
‘Well, I’m not getting him,’ Patricia said. ‘I’m having nothing to do with any of this! And if this is the sign of things to come, then we will be heading back home, that’s for sure!’
Ruth watched as her sister stormed off, not exactly unhappy to see her go. ‘Dan?’
‘I’ll get him,’ Dan said.
Ruth turned back to Beverly, noticing how her age was a little difficult to place, with young eyes set in a warm face that wore laughter lines with pride. If she had to guess, she would’ve put her at around her mid-thirties, but it was hard to say for sure. ‘So, mediumship, then,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’ Beverly said. ‘I can go. Honestly, the last thing I want to do is cause any trouble. That’s not what I’m about, it’s not why I do what I do. Never has been either.’
Ruth managed a smile. ‘Probably best that you come in, I think.’
Beverly hesitated and Ruth saw a flicker of something in the woman’s eyes.
‘Something wrong?’
The smile which slipped onto Beverly’s face wasn’t very convincing.
‘No,’ Beverly said. ‘Well, it’s just, this house, you know? Black Moss? I’ve heard about it before.’
‘Well, whatever you’ve heard, can I just ask that we get this done as quickly as possible, please?’
Beverly gave a short nod. ‘Of course.’
In the lounge, Ruth offered Beverly a drink.
‘No, I avoid alcohol if I’m doing this,’ she said. ‘Prefer to keep my wits about me as it were. Safer that way.’
‘Safer?’ Ruth repeated, sitting down. ‘Surely it’s hardly dangerous? And by doing this, what do you actually mean?’
Beverly sat down opposite Ruth. ‘No, it’s not dangerous, just so long as I stay in control. Have you seen programmes on TV where people go ghost hunting?’
Ruth laughed. ‘What, all that walking around a creepy house in the dark stuff, lots of screaming, someone pretending they can talk to ghosts and make tables move, that kind of thing?’
‘Yes, exactly that,’ Beverly said. ‘What I do, well, it isn’t anything like that at all. And I hope that’s reassuring.’
‘So, what is it, then?’ Ruth asked, not really reassured at all.
‘Like I said, I’m a medium, which means that I sort of act like an intermediary between our world, which is the world of the living, and the world we then move to after death.’
‘You mean Heaven?’
‘I mean the spirit world,’ Beverly said. ‘You could call it Heaven, I suppose, but I think it’s more complicated than that.’
‘How?’
Beverly leaned back. ‘Honestly, I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘Which probably isn’t what you want to hear.’
Restless Dead (Harry Grimm Book 5) Page 7