‘Has he been dismissed?’ She leaned forward a little and he saw the sudden spark in her eyes.
‘I will see that he never works again.’ He set his lips in a thin line. ‘That is enough. Get on with your embroidery.’
She saw him glance at her handiwork with disdain and she bit her lip. She had never been a good needlewoman; she remembered screaming at various nursery maids who had tried to teach her to sew as a child. Reluctantly she picked up the frame again and began to stab at the design with stitches of pale blue silk. It was only a short time before she pricked herself and with an exclamation of pain and annoyance saw the bloody stain spread across the spray of flowers.
Zoë asked Rosemary and Steve to join the four of them for supper that night and laid the table in the window of the great room. Ken was at his jovial best, playing host with alacrity as she retreated to the kitchen to put the finishing touches to the meal. She drew the new blind on the kitchen window and bolted the back door; they had already agreed to leave the large window unscreened as a huge harvest moon floated up into view. With several people there she didn’t feel so exposed and their guests were enchanted with the whole feel of living in a barn.
She heard a roar of laughter from next door and smiled. They were all enjoying themselves; drinks were flowing freely and the meal was nearly ready. There was a rustle in the doorway and Amanda appeared. She was carrying two glasses. ‘We can’t have the cook slaving away in here without a drink,’ she announced. ‘Come on. Stop for a minute. We need to talk on our own. What’s going on? You can tell me.’ She hitched herself onto the edge of the pine table and picked a salad leaf out of one of the hors-d’oeuvre bowls. She began to nibble it tentatively and grimaced. ‘I hate rabbit food! I hope you’ve got something meaningful to eat with this.’
Zoë laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I remembered your appetite. I’m afraid it is out of the freezer, but you will like it, I promise.’ She set down her oven gloves and picked up the glass. ‘God, I need this.’
‘So, what is going on?’
‘Ken loves it here. I don’t.’
‘Ah.’
‘I’ve nothing to do. There is no job for me here. I don’t know people. I’ve no backup.’
‘So, what’s wrong with them?’ Amanda nodded backwards towards the door to the great room.
‘Nothing. They are a bit boring and a bit obsessive. Has Rosemary started on about her wretched footpaths yet?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Amanda looked heavenwards. ‘We heard about that in the first five minutes. The gentlemen have steered her away from the subject, I am pleased to say. Ken keeps plying her with gin; I doubt if she will still be coherent by the time we eat.’
‘The food won’t be long.’
‘That wasn’t a hint. I want to know, Zo, what is it? OK, so you don’t like the house, but there is something up between you and Ken. Something else, isn’t there?’
Zoë gave a quiet laugh. ‘I had forgotten how perspicacious you are.’
‘So, who is he?’
Zoë stared at her. ‘How did you know?’
‘Because I am perspicacious!’ She leaned forward. ‘Come on, spill the beans.’
Zoë glanced towards the door. ‘You won’t say anything.’
‘You know me better than that.’
‘It’s the man next door. No,’ she giggled at Amanda’s expression, ‘not Steve, bless him. Next door across there.’ She waved her arm towards the window. ‘He’s a maverick ex-blacksmith, scarred in body and soul.’
‘Wow!’ Amanda’s eyes widened.
‘And he is a fantastic lover! Is that too much information?’
‘No such thing, dear. Go on!’
‘There is no future in it.’
‘Ah. He’s married?’
‘I’m not even sure about that. He has an ex, but he is a free spirit now. And he is cultivating mine.’
‘Your free spirit?’
‘Yes.
‘In that case, he has my total support. We all love Ken dearly, but he has never been the man for you.’
Zoë stared at her. ‘Why did you never say anything?’
‘Not my place. It was something you had to see for yourself. So what happens next?’
Zoë shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Just concentrate on the illicit sex. It is so much more exciting than the marital kind.’
‘Amanda?’
‘We are not talking about me, dear. Now, what about this food. Can I help? Then tomorrow you will have to introduce me to your Lothario so I can give him my full approval. We need to get rid of the men. No problem there, of course. We will send them to sea in the boat!’
Zoë was laughing. ‘You are good for me, Amanda. I needed cheering up so badly.’
‘Doesn’t sound like that to me. OK. No more for now in case the walls have ears. Which reminds me, you need to tell me about your ghost. That is a suitable subject for public discussion, I take it?’
Zoë nodded. ‘We’ve both felt things, seen things. Through there, in the great room.’
‘The great room!’ Amanda giggled. ‘Well, I suppose it is hard to call it anything else. It really is barn-like, isn’t it. What do you see?’
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you. Wait for your famous knack to kick in. I didn’t even know you had ghost-hunting skills.’
Amanda sobered for a moment. ‘It’s not something I talk about. Or enjoy. It is just one of those weird things that I seem to have a facility for. Sensing things. But I didn’t when we walked in, so maybe that is a comfort for you.’
Zoë was loading a tray with the small bowls of hors-d’oeuvres. ‘Can you take this through?’ She reached for a jug of dressing. ‘You didn’t feel anything at all?’ she said. Her tone was carefully neutral.
‘No.’ Amanda reached for the tray. ‘Perhaps I’ll go in there later when everyone else has gone to bed. That’s a good time to feel things. There is too much noise going on there now.’
Zoë nodded. She was unconvinced.
‘Fantastic nosh, Zoë, old girl!’ John said some time later. He rubbed his stomach and grinned at her. ‘You’ve lost none of your skill at cooking, I’m glad to see.’
Zoë smiled. ‘Thanks, John. I don’t see why I should have. This is Suffolk, not Mars.’
She paused. The room was growing colder although the woodburner was glowing with heat. Outside the moon was shining down across the gardens and there was a suspiciously frostlike glitter on the grass. She shivered. ‘Is everyone warm enough?’
Amanda’s cheeks were glowing; Rosemary, Steve and Ken were engaged in a heated conversation down the other end of the table. No one seemed to hear her question.
She could feel her eyes drawn to the far corner of the room where the panel was let into the floor. There was a focus of energy there, a vortex of swirling mist and suddenly she could hear the creak of a slowly swinging rope. She blinked. It was the heat, the food and wine; her head was throbbing and they had left the lights dim on the far side of the room, concentrating on lighting the table with candles. She heard the knife drop from her hand onto the plate with a clatter.
‘Zoë?’ John’s voice sounded a long way away. ‘Zoë, are you all right?’
She knew what the rope was; on the end there was a noose. Someone had died, hanging from the beam. She could hear the creak of the thick strands tightening, the scrape of heels on the floor, the wind in the straw which whisked across the floor as a dust devil spun in through the doors and was gone, and the squawk of a suddenly panicked hen. She felt herself stand up, pushing her chair away. She turned away from the table, staring at the spot where the body hung, swinging gently, slumped against the hay bales from which it had fallen.
‘Zoë? What’s wrong?’ There was silence round the table now. She heard other chairs pushed back. Someone had come and put their arm round her shoulders. ‘Zoë?’
‘Leave her!’ That was Ken, suddenly authoritative. Then he was there. He was trying to lead her somewh
ere. She resisted, her eyes still fixed on the scene, trying to focus, trying to make it more solid, trying to understand what had happened.
‘Murder,’ she murmured. ‘It was murder.’
‘Oh my God!’ Amanda’s voice was shrill. ‘What do we do?’
‘I thought you were the expert, honey!’ That was John. She couldn’t engage with them. She was somewhere else, but not somewhere else. The scene still hovered there, the silence behind the quiet ordinary sounds of the deserted barn almost tangible around her. No one spoke. She took a step forward and Ken’s restraining arm fell away. She was completely focused on the scene before her. Why did no one come? But someone had come. A boy was standing in the doorway looking towards the body. It shouldn’t be a child who found him; that was all wrong. That was cruel. She saw the boy move forward, his eyes rounded, then she saw him fall to the ground.
‘No!’ she screamed.
There was a resounding silence in the room. The scene had vanished. Now the barn walls were again painted; pictures hung on the spaces between the great vertical beams where once horse collars and nosebags and bait sieves had hung, the floor was shiny wood, covered in rugs, the underfloor locked away beneath its glass. She staggered forward a few steps and collapsed on the sofa nearest the woodburner. She was shaking.
Slowly she raised her head and looked round. The other five people in the room were standing round her in a semi-circle, their faces a picture of concern and fear and horror respectively. ‘Sorry,’ she stammered. ‘Not sure what happened there.’ Her hands were clutched together in her lap. She glanced nervously over her shoulder at the corner of the room but normality seemed to have returned.
‘Can you tell us what happened?’ Rosemary came and sat on the sofa next to her.
‘The usual.’ Zoë gave a shaky smile.
‘More than the usual,’ Rosemary persisted. ‘You said there was a murder?’
Zoë closed her eyes. She nodded. Then she shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I said. He was hanging, from the beam.’ She glanced up. All eyes followed her gaze.
‘Oh my God,’ Amanda whispered again.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Zoë rubbed her face hard with her hands. ‘It has never happened before like this. We’ve sensed things; we’ve seen things, but not like this.’ She was shivering violently suddenly.
Without comment Ken walked over to the tray of drinks on the side table and poured a slug of whisky into a tumbler. ‘Here.’ He pressed it into her hands. ‘It will make you feel better.’
She took a sip. ‘He was swinging, so gently. I could hear the rope creaking; his legs were dragging on the floor. If he had stood up he could have taken the weight. He was dead before –’ She shook her head and took another sip.
‘No horses this time?’ Ken said softly.
She shook her head. ‘No horses.’ She sniffed. ‘Then a boy walked in and saw him.’
‘So,’ John said abruptly. ‘I thought you were the expert.’ He was looking at his wife. ‘What’s going on?’
Amanda shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I felt nothing; I saw nothing.’ She was standing looking down at Zoë, an expression of awed concern on her face. ‘I’m a fraud. I must be. I’ve never experienced anything like that.’
Ken looked at Rosemary and then Steve. ‘Did this happen to our predecessors? Is this what finally drove them away?’
Steve nodded. ‘I suppose so. They didn’t tell us in detail. We thought it was the kids next door. To be honest, we never really believed them.’
‘Can you tell us what “the usual” is?’ John said suddenly. ‘Not all of us are in the loop here. What do you see normally?’ He couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice.
‘Just barn stuff,’ Ken said calmly. ‘We hear things mostly. Horses clip-clopping across the cobbles, hens, we see dusty visions of the past sort of hanging in the sunbeams.’
Zoë looked up. ‘That’s exactly it,’ she said huskily. ‘It is like a film projected into the space around us. Nothing scary. Not as such. But this time I could see someone. And it was awful. He was hanging from the beam –’ Her voice broke and she fought back her tears. ‘A boy came in and saw him,’ she whispered. ‘He collapsed on the floor, then it all stopped.’
No one said anything. Zoë was aware of the others exchanging glances. ‘Sorry,’ she said at last. ‘A bit of a conversation stopper. That’s what happens when you come out into the deepest countryside, folks!’ She looked from John to Amanda with a shaky smile. ‘Ignore me. I’ve gone all weird. Rosemary has noticed it setting in. It’s the curse of The Old Barn syndrome!’
Rosemary managed a smile. ‘I’m afraid she’s right. These old places have such an amazing atmosphere, don’t they? You will sleep well, my dears, don’t doubt it.’ She leaned forward and put her hand over Amanda’s. ‘There is nothing to fear. Have you met Leo yet?’ She nodded towards the window. ‘Our other neighbour? He is the expert on all this history – he’s been here longer than any of the rest of us – he will tell you about the ghosts.’
Amanda looked at Zoë and raised an eyebrow. Zoë looked away. Rosemary saw the exchange. ‘You’ve heard about him, I expect. An interesting man,’ she went on relentlessly. ‘Did he show you his books, Zoë? He’s an expert on our best ghost of all. It is a ship.’
‘A ship?’ John interrupted. ‘Now that is interesting. That’s our kind of ghost, eh, Ken?’ He laughed. ‘This conversation is getting altogether too serious for my peace of mind. I suggest we broach that interesting bottle we bought you folks. What do you say?’ He stood up and walked across to the table by the far wall where Ken had left several expensive carrier bags which their guests had presented them with on arrival. He rummaged through them and produced a bottle of brandy. ‘Glasses?’ he demanded.
Ken got up and headed for the kitchen. He paused beside Zoë and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘OK?’ he whispered.
She looked up and nodded. ‘OK,’ she replied.
In The Old Forge Leo was standing in his kitchen. He had turned out the lights and was standing at the window looking down towards the river. In the moonlight a hazy mist was forming over the water. He was waiting for the ship to appear. He could sense its presence, feel the chill that accompanied it as it drifted up the river. Zoë had asked him if it was a portent of evil. He shivered. What else could it be?
13
Eric cradled the sword in his arms as he carried it up through the wood, swathed in a length of cloth he had brought with him for the purpose. Every now and then he paused, every sense straining to hear or see anything suspicious. All was silent in the darkness. There was no moon or stars. The sky was steeped in cloud. He kept well away from the village. He wanted there to be no possibility of involving Edith in what he had done any more than he had already. He picked his way surefooted through the undergrowth and stopped again at the edge of the wood, staring out at the darker silhouette which was the squat solid outline of the little church. There were no lights showing in the small high windows.
He crept forward and ran the last few paces, crouching against the northern wall, several feet from the door. Again, nothing. He waited until his breathing had steadied. Somewhere below in the woodland he heard an owl calling, the haunting sound echoing in the silence. After a long pause he heard the answering call of its mate, sharp and loud, very close. He stood with his back to the wall, his eyes the only part of him that moved. Was that an owl, or the signal of a man?
Some instinct was telling him to be wary, that all was not well. Surely Father Wulfric would not betray him? Soundlessly he squatted down and put his bundle carefully on the ground, pushing it in amongst the long grasses against the wall. He straightened up and again waited, holding his breath. Again he heard the hoot of the owl. The sound was further away now, more wavering. There was no answer from its mate. He took a step closer to the door, and then another and then he heard the sound of horses, the thump of their hooves on the dry ground, the chink of harness.
> He retreated into the shadows of the wild rose bushes beyond the track which led to the door and waited. Three men rode up and slid from their mounts. One remained with the horses, the other two approached the door and banged on it loudly. There was no reply. Eric waited, straining his eyes in the darkness. He could see the outline of the horses, the shape of the man holding them; the other two had vanished against the more intense dark of the shadows in the lee of the church wall. The two men by the door held a whispered consultation – he could hear their murmuring but nothing of what they said – then they banged again and he heard them rattle the handle, the great iron ring which he himself had wrought when Father Wulfric had taken over the church.
The door was not bolted. He heard the creak as it opened and saw the faint glow of candlelight spilling out into the darkness, then he heard the first cry of alarm. He pulled back, watching. The man holding the horses led them closer, right up to the door, and Eric heard him call out. Inside there was silence. Eric felt himself grow cold. For a while nothing happened, then the two men reappeared, silhouettes against the golden light. They grabbed their horses’ reins and flung themselves into the saddle. In seconds all three had galloped away.
Bending low, Eric ran towards the door, his heart thudding with alarm. He paused as he reached the threshold, staring into the church. Father Wulfric was lying on the ground in front of the altar. His eyes were open, an expression of such horror on his face that Eric blenched. The old man’s woollen robe was soaked in blood; there was no sign of the weapon which had killed him.
It took Eric only three heartbeats to take in the scene before he turned away. He ducked out of the light, ran round to find the sword where he had left it and fled towards the darkness of the woods, clutching it in his arms. It was a long time before he stopped running. He was breathless, blind from the sweat which trickled into his eyes, not even knowing where he was as he slumped to a halt, his back against the trunk of a tree, and rested there, his chest heaving, the sword still held tightly in his arms. Below him, the tide was running slowly up the river, licking at the mud banks, combing out the tresses of weed. There was no sound now from the owls.
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