The Exhibits in Mrs Salmon's Waxworks

by Tim Ellis

  Paul, is that really you? Amy said.

  Yes, it's really me.

  I wanted to say I was sorry that I couldn't get to you in time.

  I understand, Amy. You tried your best, that's what matters. And you should know that I'm not in pain anymore.

  I'm so glad.

  Rita then began speaking in a woman's authoritarian voice. Albert?

  Lord Wolff jerked. Greta?

  That woman is no good for you, Albert.

  Lord Wolff's shoulders slumped and he looked down at the table. She makes me feel alive, Greta.

  Alive! Ha! Don't think I don't know which part of you she's re-animating, Albert. She's half your age for goodness sake, and she is only after your money. You're a silly old fool.

  It went quiet for a time, and then Rita spoke again. We welcome any good spirits who are near us to join our circle. Please make your presence known. Join us in our circle tonight and move among us when you're ready.

  The candle flames flickered, as if a door or window had been opened, but none had.

  Joanna Patterson's eyes became white and she spoke in a man's voice. Will you let me in tonight, Rita? Will you let me drool over your naked body, Rita? Will you . . .?

  Rita interrupted the spirit. You are not wanted here, but we thank you for your presence. Now it is time to move on.

  I'll be waiting for you, Rita.

  Rita repeated. We welcome any good spirits who are near us to join our circle. Rita said. Please make your presence known. Join us in our circle tonight and move among us when you're ready.

  Why are you here, Laura? Rita said in a deep voice.

  Tears jumped into Laura Farrell's eyes and zig-zagged down her face. I came to apologise, Colin.

  It's too late for apologies, Laura.

  I need your forgiveness.

  What difference will it make now? You got what you wanted in the end.

  I didn't mean for it to happen, Colin. Please say you forgive me?

  You have to earn forgiveness, Laura. How many times did you cheat on me?

  Only that once.

  Liar.

  Please, Colin.

  Just then, Estelle Adams blinked out, and the circle of hands was broken.

  What happened? Rita asked, as her eyes returned to normal. She looked around the room. Where is Estelle?

  Nobody responded.

  Did anybody see where Estelle went?

  The eight people looked at each other and shook their heads.

  She just . . . I don't know – disappeared, Howard Alexander said.

  People don't just disappear, Mister Alexander. Did she leave the room?

  Is it finished? Joanna Patterson asked.

  The circle is broken, Joanna, Rita said. Yes, the séance has ended, but we still need to locate Estelle.

  Maybe she left, Sir Aaron Reid suggested.

  No, she disappeared, Howard insisted. I had my eyes open. I watched her disappear.

  Rita stood up, blew out the candles and approached the camera, which then went blank.

  Now, she turned to them and said, 'I switched the video recorder off, re-wound it to where Estelle Adams disappeared and watched what happened a number of times both in real time and slow time. Mister Alexander was right – Estelle Adams simply blinked out.' Rita re-wound the tape in the recorder and said, 'Watch for yourself.'

  Duffy and Harry watched Estelle Adams disappear. It happened just as Howard Alexander and Rita had said it had – one second the woman was there, the next she wasn't.

  Harry said, 'What are we to make of that?'

  They watched the recording a few more times, but no divine enlightenment was forthcoming.

  'I'll need to take the recording with me to be analysed,' Duffy said.

  Rita nodded. 'Be my guest.' She took the tape out of the recorder and passed it to Duffy. 'I have no hidden agenda here. All I want to do is find Estelle Adams safe and sound.'

  'Did you check the whole house?' Harry asked.

  'After I switched the camera off I searched high and low, but there was just no sign of her.'

  'Amazing,' Harry said glancing at Duffy. 'Well, I suppose we'd better take a look at the room.'

  'Before we do that,' Duffy said. 'Would you mind showing us around the rest of the house, Rita?'

  Rita stood up. 'Not at all.'

  'Is there a cellar?'

  'All these old Victorian houses have either a basement or a cellar. Some of the older terraced houses that were built in the eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century have a basement, which were originally intended for use by servants working below stairs. Later houses, had a cellar for storage of coal and so forth, but not a full basement. These terraced houses have a full basement, but you won't find any servants down there.'

  Rita led them along the hall to a door and down a set of wooden stairs into the basement, which ran the width and length of the house. The floor was concrete and had been painted using red lead; the walls were whitewashed, but had begun to peel in places. There were a number of rooms, some with doors, some without. And, of course, there was a mishmash of metal and wooden shelving units stuffed with old paint tins and other junk; two rusty bicycles – one male and one female – leaning against a wall; stacks of boxes full of old clothes and household paraphernalia; and in one of the rooms a chest freezer humming away.

  'I keep meaning to have it converted, but the cost is extortionate. I had it priced a couple of years ago – forty-five thousand pounds! Probably double that now. Who has money like that? And to be perfectly honest, I don't really have a use for it, except for storage – as you can see.' She swept her hand around the basement. 'If I ever came to sell the house, I might make my money back, but I don't have any plans to sell. I'm very happy living here, and I have an established business.'

  Harry took out his EMF sensor, switched it on and began walking round checking for any sources of electromagnetic radiation, or fluctuations in the existing magnetic fields in the basement, but he didn't find anything unusual.

  'Do you have architect's drawings for the house?' Duffy asked.

  Rita said, 'Aggie Morpeth told me about the walled-up space you found in the basement at her daughter's house, but I can assure you that there's nothing like that here. To answer your question though: Yes. Well, I say yes, but I don't really know what architect's drawings look like. A drawing of the house is attached to the deeds, but whether it's the architect's drawings, I don't know. But, whatever they are, I'll let you have them before you leave.'

  'Thank you.'

  'Can you show me the corresponding spot down here where Estelle Adams was sitting upstairs?' Harry asked.

  'Yes.' Rita said, walking to a place that was directly beneath the front room where she held the séances. 'This is more or less the place beneath where Estelle was sitting.'

  Harry took more readings, but shook his head. 'Nothing down here, Duffy.'

  'Thanks, Harry.'

  Rita showed them around the rest of the house.

  Harry carried his Infrared Thermometer with him, which took the temperature of specific objects in a room using a laser with the intention of detecting cold spots, which could be a possible sign of a hidden entity. The hand-held battery-operated machine could detect temperatures in the range of -58oF to 716oF with a threshold of 3oF in either direction as the possible evidence of spectral activity.

  'This is my bedroom,' Rita said.

  'Whoa!' Harry exclaimed. 'It's like a meat freezer in here. A drop in temperature of ten degrees.'

  'You don't need to worry about what's going on in here,' Rita said, trying to usher them back out. 'I like my bedroom cold, and it has nothing to do with what happened at the séance last night.'

  'Except you were interrupted by a spirit, weren't you?' Duffy said.

  Rita's face glowed red. 'You needn't worry about him. He's a mischievous spirit who comes here regularly.'

  'Here! Into the bedroom, you mean?' Harry asked.

  Rita pushed them
out. 'As I said, you don't need to worry about Edward.'

  'The spirit has a name?' Duffy said.

  'Yes. I've known Edward for over ten years now. He had nothing to do with Estelle's disappearance. He comes here to see me.'

  Harry's brow furrowed. 'What does that mean?'

  'Nothing you need to concern yourself with. Shall we continue?'

  The last room Rita took them into was the front room where the séance took place.

  'You can leave us in here, Rita,' Duffy said.

  'Can I get you a drink? I expect ghost hunting is thirsty work.'

  'Water for me, please,' Duffy said.

  'Same for me,' Harry added.

  Once Rita had left the room Harry said, 'Should we be concerned about Edward?'

  Duffy shrugged. 'I don't think so. Rita vouched for him. He might be a source of information though. Let's keep it up our sleeve until we've exhausted all the other options?'

  'Okay. I wonder what he does here?'

  Rita brought a jug of water and two glasses on a tray into them and then left again.

  Duffy poured herself a glass of water and took a long swallow. 'I read a news article recently about something called spectrophilia – sexual encounters with spirits.'

  'Is that what you think is happening here?'

  'Edward said he wanted to drool over her naked body, and that he was waiting for her – probably in the bedroom. From the article I was reading, a lot of women decided to give up human men for orgasms with phantasms. I suppose if you think about it, you get all the enjoyment of a relationship without any of the problems.'

  He shivered. 'But she's nearly sixty!'

  'People don't stop having sex when they reach their fifties, Harry.'

  'Well, they should.'

  'Anyway, we're not here to offer our opinions on Rita's sex life, if that's what it is. Can you set up the tests?'

  'Of course.'

  While he was doing that, Duffy inspected the room and the furniture with the EMF sensor and the Infrared Thermometer, especially around the chair that Estelle Adams was sitting in before she disappeared.

  Harry set up the ghost box, which was used to verbally communicate with spirits. It scanned radio frequencies and created a din of white noise, which a spirit could manipulate into recognisable speech to respond to questions. Next, he placed the digital audio recorder next to it to record the EVP session and switched that on. If a spirit did answer a question verbally, then they definitely wanted to record the response.

  'I'm getting nothing from the EMF or the infrared,' Duffy said.

  'Okay. Well, let's try asking a few questions.' Harry cleared his throat and spoke in his normal voice. 'Excuse us for barging in like this, but we're looking for a young lady called Estelle Adams. Is Estelle there?'

  They waited, but there was no response.

  'Is anybody there?'

  After each question, they waited for approximately ten seconds.

  'What is your name?'

  'We'd like to talk to Estelle if she's there? Estelle! Are you there?'

  Harry continued to ask questions for twenty minutes from a pre-prepared list that he'd written in his journal, but as far as either of them could tell no spirit responded to any of the questions.

  'I have Audacity on my computer . . .'

  'What's that?'

  'It a free and open-source digital audio editor and recording application that you can download from the internet. I have the complete EVP session recorded, so I'll do a full analysis when I return home and let you know if I find anything. Unless . . . you want to do the analysis yourself? It is your investigation, after all.'

  She hadn't taken part in any paranormal investigations before. With the exception of coming face-to-face with a demon in the Charnel House in Copperfield Street, her experiences of the occult, supernatural and unworldly was sparse to non-existent to say the least. As was her experience of using any of the ghost-hunting tools that Harry had brought with him in his bag. Having seen Harry using them, they weren't completely alien to her.

  'Let's both do the analysis, shall we?'

  'Yes, that's good idea. And then we can compare results. I'll send you a copy of the recording when I get home.'

  'Thanks. And I'll download Audacity onto my computer, so that I can analyse it. Also, I'll send you a copy of the recording of the séance and we can both analyse that as well.'

  'Excellent. Well, what now?'

  'I think we need to find out a bit more about Estelle Adams and probably go round to her house.'

  'Rita said she didn't have an address for her.'

  'I know someone who can find out where she lives.'

  'Oh, okay! Yes, we should really check out where she lives. Miss Adams could be sitting at home now having a good laugh at Rita's expense.'

  'That's true, but I don't think so.'

  'No, probably not.'

  'We still need to check though.'

  'Definitely.'

  'And we also need to speak to the other witnesses independently and obtain their accounts of what happened.'

  'Can you get their addresses as well?'

  'Yes.'

  As Harry began putting his equipment away in his bag he said, 'I was thinking that we should write a report.'

  'Write a report!'

  'Yes. Of course, we anonymise everything, but we could set up a website . . . I'm being a bit forward here, but now that we know each other and have conducted a paranormal investigation together, we could become a team. What do you think?'

  The idea of what he was suggesting made her feel excited. In her mind's eye, she was already running before she could walk. She was thinking about what would go on the website; what name they should call the business; how many investigators they should employ; opening branches in other parts of the UK – in other countries! She could be the owner of an international paranormal business jetting off all over the globe investigating the weird and wonderful world of the supernatural.

  She stared at Harry. She didn't really know him, but she liked the idea of setting up a business, which she nearly was because she was already charging money for her services. And a website sounded like a brilliant idea to advertise the business, provide details of the services they were offering and the key facts about their latest investigation. She could even do a retrospective report on Surgat the Demon – that would open people's eyes. 'I don't really know you, Harry. And you don't know me either. What about we do a three-month trial to see if we can work together?'

  'Sounds fine to me.'

  They shook hands on it.

  Once they'd packed all the equipment up, they went to speak to Rita.

  'We didn't find anything,' Duffy said.

  'Except in your bedroom,' Harry reminded her.

  Duffy gave him a look. 'But we haven't finished our investigation yet by any means. We still have a number of things to do such as analyse the data we collected in the room just now; analyse the recording of the séance you've given me; examine the architectural drawings; go round to Estelle Adams and find out more about her and her dead husband . . . The question she wanted to ask him intrigues me. Also, we'll interview everyone who was there, and then we'll come back and let you know what – if anything – we've discovered.'

  'That's sounds reasonable. When do you want me to pay?'

  'At the end of the investigation. I'll provide you with a detailed invoice that justifies how our time was spent.'

  'All right.'

  'One last question before we go.'

  'Yes?'

  'When Estelle Adams disappeared, did you hear or see anything?'

  Rita shook her head. 'I certainly didn't. As I've already explained, I was in a trance and only became fully aware again once the circle had been broken.'

  'Of course. What about the others? Did they mention seeing or hearing anything?'

  'Not that I recall.'

  'You said you'd let me have the architect's drawings,' Duffy reminded her.
/>   'Oh yes!' Rita walked over to a sideboard, opened a drawer, withdrew a folder and handed it to Duffy.

  She opened the folder and rifled through the documents inside. These included a copy of the Title Register held by Her Majesty's Land Registry showing the chain of ownership for the land and property since it was first registered in 1876; a copy of the Title Plan showing the extent of the parcel of land based on an Ordnance Survey map and indicated the boundaries with red edging; and a floorplan drawn up by the Estate Agents – Roehampton & Motley Ltd – who sold the house to Rita in 1999. There were no architect's drawings.

  'I'll keep the documents safe and let you have them back when we return.'

  'Yes, please.'

  Duffy stood up. 'We'll take our leave then, and I'll be in contact again over the next week.'

  'Have you got a card with your number on, in case I think of anything else?' Rita asked.

  'No, I haven't had a chance to organise one yet.' She wrote her mobile number on the corner of a page at the back of the journal and passed it to Rita. 'Ring any time.'

  'Thanks.'

  They made their way out.

  As they walked towards the Clapham Junction station Harry said, 'Why did you ask the last question about seeing or hearing anything else?'