Restless Dead (Harry Grimm Book 5)

by David J Gatward

  ‘I guess so,’ Dan said.

  ‘You okay, Mum?’ Anthony asked, and unable to stop himself, he quickly peeked over the table and saw her, eyes closed, face just a little white.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, Love,’ she replied.

  Anthony snapped his eyes shut again and tried to go back to focusing on Nana. It was sad, what had happened, and she had been really awesome, young, too, but he didn’t feel as sad as everyone else. He wasn’t really sure why. It certainly wasn’t that he hadn’t loved her. How could he not have? Her biscuits were amazing and she would always give him a little bit too much money for his birthday, wouldn’t she, on top of what Granddad gave him?

  ‘Oh my God, she’s here . . .’

  Beverley’s voice sounded surprised and the words sent another shiver through Anthony. Was this for real? He’d seen more than enough TV shows about hunting ghosts to know just how much of it was total bollocks. But now that he was in the middle of what he’d seen on the screen, he wasn’t so sure. It certainly felt real, didn’t it? But what did that actually even mean? Weren’t they all just sitting together with their eyes closed thinking about a dead person? Do that, and any sound, any sensation, would be twisted by the imagination into something it wasn’t, right?

  When Beverley spoke again, her voice was softer, Anthony thought, distant almost, like it was coming from outside of the room.

  ‘Where . . . am . . . I . . .’

  ‘Helen?’

  Anthony heard the emotion in his granddad’s voice as he said Nana’s name.

  ‘Helen, it’s me, James. Is that you? Are you there? I miss you.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Patricia said, her voice hard, and Anthony heard his aunt getting to her feet.

  The next tap at the window was rapid, a rat-tat-ta-tat-tat, again and again and again, and Anthony heard Patricia scream just a little.

  ‘Sit down!’ James said, his voice loud and firm.

  Beverley spoke once more, and again her voice was soft and far away.

  ‘Bright light . . . the bright light . . .’

  Hearing this, Anthony started to change his mind about what was going on. It had been a bit spooky and weird up to now, but this bright light stuff? Wasn’t that what you apparently saw when you died? Yeah, it was, wasn’t it? He’d seen it on a documentary about near-death experiences. There was that really cool story about someone who had watched their own body being operated on, who had then told the surgeon about the whole thing, start to finish. So, it made sense then, all of it, what this Beverley was doing; she was simply trying to help Granddad, wasn’t she? Making it up, too, he had no doubt, but Granddad needed closure and if he heard that Nana was heading off to Heaven, floating off towards the light? Well, there was nothing wrong with that, was there? It was actually rather nice, he thought.

  ‘You can go to the light, Helen,’ Beverley said, her voice her own again, though Anthony thought how it sounded like she was struggling to control it, to keep it her own. ‘It’s safe, I promise.’

  ‘But I don’t want her to go,’ James said. ‘I want her to stay. To be here, with me!’

  ‘This was the before,’ Beverly said, speaking in that hauntingly faint voice once more. ‘Not the now . . . a bright light . . . blinding . . .’

  Tapping at the window again, but this time it wouldn’t stop, as though not just one bird but half a dozen were out there, tap-tap-tapping at the glass. And then Beverley’s voice was no longer faint, but a droning moan, as though of someone at the bottom of a well, calling out, but without words.

  ‘Mum . . .’ Anthony said, almost without thinking, unable to disguise the fear in his voice.

  ‘It’s okay, Love,’ Ruth said.

  But Anthony wasn’t so sure that it was, because the tapping was still going on, and Beverley’s moaning was twisting into something else, a scream scratching at the back of it.

  Tap-tap-tap! Tap-tap-tap!

  Anthony heard a sharp movement then the eeriness in the room was ripped apart by a wrenching howl that heaved itself out from Beverley’s throat.

  ‘Right, that’s it!’ Dan shouted.

  Anthony opened his eyes to see Beverley on her feet and it looked to him like she had just had an electric shock, standing there as she was, stiff as a board, eyes wide, mouth pulled open, arms by her side, her fingers splayed outwards. Uncle Dan was at the window, had snapped the curtains open.

  ‘Right, you bastards!’ he shouted. ‘Think you’re funny, do you? Well, you’re not!’

  Then Aunty Patricia was up out of her chair as well and she was raging, jabbing a pointed finger at Beverly, screaming at her, right in her face, spittle on her lips.

  ‘How dare you come into our house and do this and play cheap tricks on us! How dare you! And whoever that is out there throwing stones at the glass? Friends of yours, are they? Thought you could come over here and have some cheap fun, am I right? Well, it’s over! This is over! You are over, you mad bitch!’

  Anthony couldn’t believe what he was seeing, what he was hearing.

  Dan was back from the windows now and Patricia was still screaming.

  ‘I’m going outside,’ Dan said. ‘I tell you, if I had a shotgun, I’d send a couple of barrels off just to scare the crap out of whoever that is out there! That would teach them a lesson!’

  Dan marched out and Anthony watched his aunt chase after him. A moment later, a torch beam sliced through the night outside. Then Anthony looked over at his mum and his granddad. They were both quiet, tears in their eyes.

  ‘It was her, I know it,’ James said, still holding Ruth’s hand. ‘I want her back. I just want her back . . .’

  Anthony looked up at Beverley. She had relaxed a little, but that wasn’t saying much, he thought, because right now she just looked plain terrified, her face drained of colour and clammy.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  Beverley didn’t respond straight away, but when she did, she turned wide eyes to look down at him, and Anthony was sure that in them he saw real fear.

  ‘What was that?’ he asked. ‘You did something with your voice. And the tapping at the window. How?’

  Beverley was still staring, and Anthony didn’t like it at all. It was freaking him out.

  ‘Look, I get it,’ he said, ‘all of this, the weird creepiness, but you can stop, okay?’

  Beverley shook her head as though trying to dislodge something.

  ‘I . . . I . . .’

  Anthony stood up. ‘I’ll show you out.’

  ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen,’ Beverley said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Beverly pushed herself to her feet and walked over to the window where the tapping had sounded from. Anthony watched her reach up to the latch then she dropped her hand and rested her head against the glass, wringing her hands together in front of her stomach.

  Dan and Patricia stormed back into the room, crashing through the door, slamming it into the wall. A picture crashed to the floor, the glass bursting from its frame in deadly slivers.

  Beverly turned to face them.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I . . . this isn’t . . .’

  ‘Sorry?’ Patricia said, cutting in with a mean laugh crisping up the edge of her voice. ‘You’re sorry? Look at my dad! Look at him! He’s a blubbering mess, because of you! Why the hell any of us agreed to this, I just don’t know! But it’s done! It’s over!’

  ‘We’ll be reporting this,’ Dan said. ‘You have my word on that, you bloody charlatan!’

  Beverley glanced down at Anthony, then across to Ruth and James.

  ‘I don’t know what that was, that voice,’ she said. ‘Really, I don’t. What did I say? What happened?’

  ‘Right, enough of this tosh,’ Dan said, then pointed at the lounge door. ‘Out! Now! Before I kick you out!’

  Beverley stepped out of the circle of chairs, stumbling a little and Anthony followed.

  ‘Yes, that’s it, Anthony,’ Patricia said. ‘Make sure she is
off our property!’

  In the hall, Anthony followed Beverley along the hall and to the door. He jogged past her and opened it. Beverley stepped out into the cold night air.

  ‘You said something about a bright light,’ Anthony said.

  ‘What?’

  Beverley looked round at Anthony and he saw in her eyes that fear again.

  ‘Back then, before . . . You asked what you said. And what you said, well, it was something about a bright light. So, I’m guessing that was Heaven, right? That’s what you were talking about, to help Granddad? Make him think Nana is there now?’

  Beverley stared at Anthony.

  ‘This has never happened before.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if it was fake,’ Anthony said. ‘I don’t know how you did it, the tapping, the voice, but I get why you did it, why you do this. To help people deal with stuff.’

  ‘But the light,’ Beverley said. ‘The knocking, yes, I know about that, but what I said . . . the voice . . . I don’t understand! It wasn’t . . .’

  ‘It was Heaven, right?’ Anthony said. ‘That’s why you said it, so that Grandad would think Nana was in Heaven now.’

  From behind him in the house, a shout chased along the hallway, the voice of his aunt as cold as steel.

  ‘That mad bitch had better not still be here, Anthony! I want her out!’

  Beverley turned to leave, but stopped, and looked back at Anthony.

  ‘It wasn’t Heaven,’ Beverly said then. ‘The light, that’s not what I saw. It’s not what I was being shown, it was something else. Helen was showing me another light . . .’

  Anthony was confused now. What the hell was this woman saying?

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘But you said you saw a bright light and I’ve seen this stuff on TV. And it’s Heaven! It’s always Heaven, isn’t it? And then the spirit or soul or whatever it is, drifts off down this tunnel of light and at the end of it there are relatives waiting to welcome you—’

  ‘It was a bright light, yes,’ Beverley said, interrupting. ‘But that’s not all it was.’

  ‘Then what was it?’ Anthony asked. ‘What was it you saw? What were you talking about?’

  Beverly stared at him then and Anthony couldn’t help but shiver a little under her gaze.

  ‘It was a bright light, yes,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t Heaven or a tunnel of light. It was just this bright light shining out onto an empty road. And I couldn’t see. That’s what I saw.’

  Then she turned and was gone. And the chill Anthony had felt earlier came at him once again and for a moment he really wasn’t sure which was worse: walking back into a house of ghosts, or back to his bedroom somewhere out there beyond the dark. He decided to go with heading back to the lounge, at least then he would be with his mum.

  ‘Is that mad bitch gone?’ Patricia asked, looking over to Anthony who watched as she handed large glasses of whisky to his granddad and uncle.

  ‘Yes,’ Anthony said.

  ‘Please, don’t use that kind of language around my son,’ Ruth said, and Anthony saw the look his mum sent at his aunt bullet-quick as she came to stand next to him. ‘We’re going now. We’ll see you all tomorrow.’

  ‘Sorry it all got a bit strange,’ James said.

  ‘No, it was fine,’ said Ruth and Anthony nodded in agreement.

  ‘Think I might head out to the shed for a while,’ James said and stood up, walking over to pick up the whisky bottle Patricia had poured the drinks from.

  ‘Don’t stay out there too long,’ Ruth said.

  Dan yawned. ‘Well, I’m going to bed.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Patricia.

  Anthony felt his mum’s hand on his arm. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘Yeah, Mum,’ Anthony said.

  Outside the house and walking back to the cottage, Anthony thought back to everything that had happened. ‘Mum,’ he said, ‘do you think that was Nana? I mean, the tapping, the weird voices?’

  ‘I don’t know what it was,’ Ruth replied. ‘I just know that I need to get to bed and get to sleep. It’s been a very strange day and I’m exhausted.’

  Anthony agreed and followed his mum home. Later, when he was lying in his bed, staring into the darkness, all he could think about was what Beverly had said to him before she’d left. If the light she’d apparently seen hadn’t been Heaven, then what?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Harry woke in darkness, his groggy brain being attacked by a thin, metallic shrill sound, as though somewhere in the flat, Ben had decided that the middle of the night was a really good time to put up a shelf. Rubbing his eyes, he reached for his phone, which seemed to delight in informing him that it was just coming up to one-thirty.

  ‘What . . . I mean, Grimm,’ he said, his voice cracked with tiredness.

  ‘It’s Liz,’ came the reply. ‘We’ve got a fire.’

  ‘Who’s on duty?’

  ‘Just me,’ Liz said. ‘Jadyn’s around, but he’s been called off to something else down dale with Gordy.’

  Harry yawned and stretched with all the aches and grumbles of a bear waking from hibernation.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Other side of Appersett,’ Liz said. ‘I’ve called Matt and he’s on his way over. Told me to call you.’

  ‘What about Jim and Jen?’ Harry said, then, ‘Actually, scrap that. We’ll be fine with the three of us. Then those two can be all fresh for tomorrow if needs be. Where are you?’

  ‘Just heading back from a reported break-in up in Gayle, which turned out to be nowt,’ Liz said.

  ‘What, nothing at all?’

  ‘Owner’s dog,’ Liz said. ‘It had got out and was trying to get back in. Mad little bugger it was.’

  ‘I’ll meet you outside the community office, then,’ Harry said.

  ‘On my way,’ Liz said.

  Harry went to kill the call, but something hooked him back, something Liz had said about where the fire was.

  ‘Did you say beyond Appersett?’

  ‘Yes,’ Liz said. ‘Couple of miles out the other side.’

  ‘Where, exactly?’ Harry asked. ‘Black Moss House?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Liz said. ‘How—?’

  ‘A hunch,’ Harry said, and closed the call.

  After somehow managing to dress himself without tripping too often over his tired legs, Harry headed off through the flat.

  ‘Something up, Harry?’

  Ben was at his bedroom door.

  ‘The joy of police work,’ Harry said. ‘High stress, no sleep, early death.’

  ‘No change there, then,’ Ben replied, then looked at his watch. ‘It’s not even two in the morning!’

  ‘No consideration, some people,’ Harry said and let himself out.

  Outside, Harry found Hawes to be a place of almost serene quiet, the kind he had only ever really found in cathedrals. Not that he made a habit of visiting places of worship, but it had always amazed him the places where police work had taken him. And what had that one been? he thought, trying to recall a long-ago case, eventually giving up and instead just settling back to taking in the bright, icy air.

  As he walked down towards where one of the response cars was parked, windows stared back at him from shops and pubs, hotel rooms and cafes, their glass eyes impenetrable pools of deep black. On the wind, he heard the hoot of an owl, and behind that the far off, almost haunting bleat of sheep on the fell.

  Ahead, movement caught his eye, then he saw light shine out from a car door being opened.

  ‘Away then,’ Liz called out. ‘I’ll drive.’

  Harry didn’t argue and dropped himself down into the passenger seat.

  Liz climbed in next to him and said, ‘So, have your hunches always been uncannily accurate?’

  ‘Sadly, no.’

  ‘Then how did you know?’

  ‘Things clearly aren’t right up there, are they, after the accident? And you were there at the funeral with Matt and me, so you saw what happened. I just put
two and two together, as they say.’

  ‘If I do that, I usually end up with five,’ Liz said, starting the car then kicking them forward with a sharp tap on the accelerator. ‘And how was your afternoon?’

  ‘My what?’ Harry replied.

  ‘After the funeral,’ Liz said. ‘You had to head off. In a bit of a rush, you were, too.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ Harry said, thinking back to the job interview. ‘It was fine.’

  ‘Important, was it?’

  ‘A little.’

  Leaving Hawes, Appersett was soon rushing towards them.

  ‘What is it we’re actually dealing with?’ Harry said, rubbing sleep from his eyes and keen to not talk about the interview. ‘Who called it in?’

  ‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ Liz said, as she swept them over the bridge on the other side of the village.

  Harry glanced over at the speedometer and found himself agreeing and reaching up for the handle above the door at the same time. What was it, he thought, with people in the dales driving like complete nutters?

  He saw the orange flickering light in the darkness first, as Liz hammered along the main road, then the house came into view through the trees. Harry was relieved to see that neither it nor the cottage beside it, were on fire. And yet tongues of flame were licking at the darkness at the back of the main house, thick plumes of grey smoke chucking themselves high into the sky.

  ‘So, what’s actually on fire, then?’ Liz asked, slowing down to turn off the main road.

  As they bounced up the lane to the rear of the house, Harry saw that the Fire Service had already arrived and were dealing with the fire, which he could now see was coming from the rather expensive cabin James Fletcher had laughingly referred to as a shed. As Liz parked up, Harry heard sirens, then saw more emergency lights as an ambulance tore its way up the lane.

  Outside the car, Harry had Liz head over to liaise with the other two emergency services, while he turned himself towards the house and the small gathering of people huddled together at the back door. The roar of the fire was a terrifying thing, Harry thought, snatching a look at the flames, the heat of it forcing him to turn his walk into a quick jog.