by Amanda Mason
‘Bee.’
‘What?’
Loo wasn’t sure what it was, the wobbly stool or the uneven flagstones, but one minute Bee was reaching up for chocolate, the next she’d crashed to the floor, the stool sent scuttling across the room.
‘Ow. Shit.’ Bee lay on her side, cradling her elbow against her body. ‘That hurt.’
‘Bee.’ Loo gave up her post by the door and crouched down on the dusty flags. ‘Are you OK?’
But Bee didn’t answer. She was staring into the darkness under the shelf.
12
Now
They get to Blue Jacket House at around eleven.
Hal lets Nina and Lewis deal with the girl on the front desk as he looks around the entrance hall, trying to imagine he’s the sort of person who could afford to have his parents live in a place like this. The meeting is still on, as far as Nina is concerned, anyway; he wonders what she will do if Cathy doesn’t show up.
One open door leads to a dining room, tastefully set out as if it were a hotel, not an institution, and beyond that he can just make out a garden. Another door leads to a sort of living room – there’s a TV and bookcases and pleasant but impersonal prints and paintings on the walls, landscapes, mostly. There are no family photos as far as he can see, no clutter.
‘If you’d like to take a seat,’ the girl leads the way into the living room, ‘I’ll let Mrs Corvino know you’re here.’
They choose the two sofas by the fireplace, set facing each other across a long low coffee table. Nina sets up the laptop and Lewis goes over his notes. It’s a dull day outside and someone has switched on the table lamps, which cast a pale yellow glow around the room.
‘There,’ Nina says, looking up as the door opens. She’s nervous, Hal realises, in a way she hadn’t been last night. His head aches, and every now and then he’s seized with a dizzying nausea. He thought he could hold his drink better than this.
Lucy Frankland walks into the room. She looks dreadful, tired, ill, and there’s something else, an underlying strain – she almost looks afraid. ‘I asked you not to come,’ she says.
‘Yes. Well.’ Nina looks to Lewis for some sort of support. ‘We arranged this with Cathy and we couldn’t just not turn up.’
‘Is she still willing to see us?’ Lewis asked. ‘Only it is very important.’
‘She’s—’ Lucy appears to lose her nerve momentarily. ‘Yes. She’s just getting ready. I needed to – I do need to insist on a couple of things,’ she says.
‘Such as?’ Nina manages to keep her tone civil.
‘My mother is not well. If she says she doesn’t remember, or doesn’t want to discuss something, then you will need to respect that.’
‘Of course,’ says Lewis.
‘And any questions you may have – you’re here to discuss the investigation, yes? You do not mention my sister. Anything that happened at the farm after Michael and Simon had gone, everything that happened afterwards – it was nothing to do with them and it’s nothing to do with you.’
‘But—’ Nina begins.
‘I mean it,’ says Lucy. ‘I will not have my mother upset.’
‘Of course not,’ says Lewis. ‘We don’t want that either.’
‘Right, well. As long as that’s understood.’ She looks around the room, taking in the way they’ve set up the table, and then says something about fetching Cathy.
Cathy Corvino is not what Hal expected; everything about her seems to have been stripped away, pared back. He’s not read much of it, but the young mother in Simon Leigh’s book had been a pretty thing, given to loose, flowing clothes and jangling jewellery. This woman – a slight figure dressed in black – looks sober, severe, by comparison. The bruising and grazes on her face stand out against the pallor of her skin and she moves carefully across the room. She’s had a fall, Hal remembers, noting the strapping around her right wrist. Lucy hadn’t said where or when, though. They should have asked.
‘Hello,’ says Cathy and she takes Nina’s hands, both hands, looking up into the young woman’s face. ‘I had no idea,’ she says. ‘About your father. You should have told me. It would have saved so much … I’m sorry – I’m so sorry for your loss.’ Lucy doesn’t speak at all; she hangs back by the door.
‘Thank you, that’s very kind of you,’ says Nina. ‘Shall we sit down?’
Lewis and Nina arrange themselves either side of Cathy, facing the open laptops. Hal takes a seat on the sofa opposite and Lucy only joins him after a silent and pointed look from her mother.
‘Would you like anything? Some tea, coffee?’ asks Cathy.
‘No, thank you,’ says Nina. ‘I just wanted to – we just wanted to … we really appreciate you seeing us. If we could talk a little about the farm, first? If that’s OK?’
It seems to Lucy that the marble might burn a hole in her pocket. She can feel it pressing against her hip every time she leans forward or shifts in her seat. She is, on some level, still irritated that she can’t change Cathy’s mind about this meeting, that she can’t make her mother see how reckless this is, but it’s the marble that frightens her. At best it’s a joke: one of them got in early somehow, was sneaking around, waited until she wasn’t looking and just threw it at her. To frighten her, to knock her off balance.
At worst it’s – she finds she can’t follow that train of thought. She wishes she had the courage to pack up and go, to let them get on with it. She can barely stand to be in the same room as them all, but neither can she bring herself to leave.
‘Yes,’ Cathy says. ‘That was taken by Isobel. You remember Issy, don’t you, Lucia?’ Lewis leans forward and helpfully spins the laptop round, adjusting the angle of the screen for her.
The children are standing in the front garden, squinting in the sunshine, and are arranged by age, oldest to youngest. Isobel had given them a copy of this photo, Lucy remembers. It had been taken before Michael and Simon had arrived. Cathy used to keep it propped up on the kitchen mantelpiece. ‘Of course I do,’ she says.
‘Dante, Bianca, Lucia, Florian and Antonella,’ Cathy counts them off, left to right.
All of them favouring their father, with his thick dark hair and olive skin. Florian holding the baby loosely in his arms, both of them scowling.
‘Such lovely names,’ says Nina.
‘We spent a summer in Italy, before the kids were born. Joe still had some family there. A great-aunt and uncle, lots of cousins. We always thought we’d go back, take the children with us, but of course that never happened.’ Cathy reaches out and brushes her fingertips across the screen. Bee stares fiercely into the camera, her hands on her hips. ‘Look at them,’ she says. ‘That’s the last photograph, the last one with them all together.’ Cathy’s hand is trembling. ‘Bianca,’ she says softly.
‘Maybe we should come back another time,’ says Hal.
‘Oh, no,’ says Cathy. ‘It’s quite all right.’ She folds her hands in her lap. ‘Lucia tells me you have your father’s notes, from 1976.’
‘Well, yes.’ Nina looks embarrassed. ‘He intended for everything to go to the Society, I think. And we’ll do that, of course. But yes.’
‘Do you have them with you?’
‘Most of them. There’s a lot to go through.’
‘Things he left out of the book.’
‘Yes. Transcriptions of the interviews with the girls, mostly, a sort of diary noting the events they witnessed, and Isobel’s photographs. Michael Warren’s archive all went to the Society after his death. I’m hoping we can get access to that at some point too.’
Lewis leans forward and begins to tap at his keyboard. ‘We don’t want to keep you too long,’ he says. ‘Maybe you’d like to see what we got this weekend?’
‘Of course,’ says Cathy.
Nina does most of the talking, explaining how they’d set the cameras up, how they’d had to look through most of the footage afterwards. ‘Except the camera in the bedroom,’ she says, leaning forward and clicking on a file
icon, pretending not to notice the way Lucy flinches before adopting a determinedly neutral expression. ‘We were able to monitor that from the dining room. It’s easier if you see for yourself.’ She presses play and sits back. The first clip shows the bedroom with Nina sitting on the floor. ‘This was the second set of observations, at around nine thirty.’
‘I see,’ says Cathy, her eyes fixed on the screen.
The camera moves a little, shifting towards the far corner, zooming in.
‘The sound’s a bit rubbish here,’ says Lewis.
‘The sound is perfectly fine,’ says Hal.
On-screen Nina is suddenly in full close-up.
‘What happened there?’ asks Cathy.
‘Nothing,’ says Hal. ‘Technical issues.’
Nina looks up and she jerks back, vanishing momentarily from the screen.
‘Did you see something?’
‘No,’ says Nina. ‘Listen.’ They can just about hear it, a faint thudding in the walls. The camera pulls back again, and the darkened room comes into focus.
‘Who’s there?’ The Nina in the video stands and looks into the camera. ‘Can you hear that?’ she says as the two boys run into shot, Lewis first and a few paces behind him, Hal. The noise stops.
‘That’s it,’ says Nina, pressing pause. ‘But it was much louder in real life, fuller, somehow.’
‘Does it remind you of anything?’ asks Lewis.
Cathy nods, but she doesn’t speak.
‘Mum.’ Lucy’s voice is soft, almost pleading. ‘Maybe that’s enough for one day.’
‘It’s the same, isn’t it?’ Cathy turns to face her daughter. ‘Lucia?’
‘You can’t say that, it’s not – you can’t tell, not from a few minutes of film. Anyone could be messing with the sound.’ Lucy looks at them all, pale, stubborn, her arms folded, shrinking into herself. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘but you could, any of you could, you must see that.’
Cathy turns to the screen, the three of them frozen there, in the girls’ bedroom. ‘It’s the same,’ she says again.
‘There’s something else,’ says Nina, clicking on a different icon. ‘We missed this at the time. Hal found it when he was going through the rushes.’ They watch the clip she selects: a static image of the first-floor landing. A minute passes; two.
‘How long does this go on for?’ asks Lucy.
‘Keep watching,’ says Nina, leaning towards the screen, the empty hallway. ‘There.’ She hits pause and it seems to Lucy that one of the shadows in the corner of the screen has taken on a more distinct form, has elongated itself into a figure of some sort. The closer she looks, the more familiar it seems. ‘Can you see? Her head here, her arm,’ says Nina.
‘No,’ says Lucy. It’s shapeless, a shadow, an illusion. There’s a word for it, isn’t there, the human need to give form to abstract patterns, to find faces in things? ‘There’s no one there.’
‘It’s not brilliant quality.’
‘There’s no one there,’ Lucy says again. There’s no one there, because that would be impossible.
‘I’ll play it again.’
‘No.’ Lucy stands. ‘That’s enough. I’d like you to go now.’
Cathy leans forward, frowning. ‘Show me again,’ she says.
Nina taps on the mouse pad and once more a figure, no more than a dark smudge on the camera lens, appears to step out of the shadows to turn towards the girls’ bedroom door before fading away.
‘Can you slow it down?’
Nina taps on the pad again, playing the clip at half speed, but she’s out of focus, the figure, if she’s there at all, and slowing her down only makes her less substantial, less present. ‘Again,’ Cathy says and the shot at normal speed, the girl stepping forward and they play vanishing in the blink of an eye. She leans back against the sofa cushions. ‘Thank you,’ she says.
‘Mum …’
‘I’m fine, Lucia.’ But she’s pale.
‘Do you recognise her?’ asks Nina.
‘I …’ Cathy looks puzzled, the way she does when she’s struggling to find the right word or to recall a once-familiar name. ‘I think Lucia is right, that’s enough for one day.’
‘The girl in the video, is she—’
‘Jesus, Nina.’ Hal leans across the table, snapping the screen down. ‘We should go,’ he says. ‘We’ve imposed for long enough.’ He stands but neither Lewis nor Nina move.
‘It would be so helpful,’ Nina says, ‘if we could persuade you to visit the farm again.’
Cathy raises a hand to her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I get so tired these days.’
‘We wouldn’t expect you to stay there. But perhaps you’d consider—’
‘I’d like you to go now,’ Lucy says. ‘We both would.’
Lewis packs up the laptop. ‘We’re sorry,’ he says. ‘We didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘Oh, you didn’t,’ says Cathy, ‘but it’s – difficult, sometimes.’ She gets slowly to her feet with a weary smile. ‘We could talk again, though,’ she says. ‘You could bring along Simon’s notes. I’d be happy to go through them with you.’
‘Thanks,’ says Nina. ‘I’d – we’d like that. Thank you.’
Lucy walks them to the front door and sees them out of the house in silence.
13
Then
Simon was awake. It had been light since four and his sleeping bag and thin mat provided no real cushioning against the hard, unyielding earth. He wondered if Issy’s friend would ever want his tent back or if he could just set fire to it when he was done. He lay on his back, staring at the orange nylon interior, trying to work out just how soon he’d be back in London; he was tired of sleeping rough, of the long hot summer. He missed the city, civilisation.
Still, they were done now, more or less. They were heading back tomorrow, taking their evidence with them. They’d stay in touch with Cathy and the kids, of course, Issy too, but he doubted he’d ever return to the farm. He couldn’t say he was sorry about that.
He became aware that he’d drifted off only when he woke up again with a start. He was lying on top of the sleeping bag, naked; it was far too hot to attempt sleeping inside it, and the damp fabric was sticking to his bare skin. It must have been a bird call that woke him. But no, what was that?
‘Issy?’ he said. Not likely, of course, but she might be the person walking round outside, circling the tent. He could hear someone picking their way through the clumps of long grass, the dry swish of it. He could see too the way the light kept changing as a shadow fell across the tent and then slid away. She was close. Too close. ‘Isobel?’
No reply. It was the girls then. Shit. He’d better cover himself up. He picked up his jeans and started to pull them on, the heavy fabric dragging against his clammy skin.
‘Bee? Is that you?’ Cautiously he raised himself up onto his knees, struggling to fasten his fly, keeping his eyes focused on the front of the tent as he tugged at the zip. His mouth was dry. He had a bottle of water somewhere, warm, no doubt. The figure stopped. And in the silence, despite the heat, his skin prickled.
‘Loo?’
The hail of stones, most no bigger than his fist, fell all at once and from all sides, collapsing the tent on top of him.
‘Fascinating.’
‘Thanks.’
Simon and the professor were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea. Cathy was at the sink, washing up as Flor played in his usual spot on the rag rug in front of the Aga. The baby, Anto, was asleep in her pram outside, wedged up against the kitchen step.
‘You had the sense the presence was female?’
‘I thought it was Isobel, at first, then possibly Bee or Loo.’
The professor was making notes, and Simon watched him write, unsure how he should feel about this. He’d been hoping for sympathy or a rational explanation – some lads from the village making mischief, perhaps. He hadn’t expected to become a footnote in his own investigation.
‘Are you all right?�
�� asked the professor. ‘Not hurt?’
‘No. I just felt …’
Foolish. Once the tent fell apart he’d felt ridiculous, but before that he’d felt, just for a moment, afraid. ‘I’m fine,’ he said.
‘Have you cleared the tent up?’
‘Not yet. I thought you’d want to see it first.’
‘Good.’
‘See what?’
Simon looked up and there by the kitchen door stood Bee and Loo. They looked different today, and it took him a moment to work out what it was. Instead of their usual shorts and T-shirts, each girl wore an old-fashioned petticoat, full-skirted, frilly, and some sort of chemise. They reminded him of—
‘Where have those come from?’ asked Cathy.
‘The dressing-up box,’ said Bee.
‘We found them,’ said Loo.
‘Well, which is it?’ asked Cathy.
Bee looked at Loo. ‘We found them in the scullery, under the shelves, then we put them in the dressing-up box,’ she said.
‘So they’re not yours,’ said Cathy.
‘They’re not anyone’s,’ said Bee.
‘See what?’ said Loo, looking at Simon.
‘Simon had a bit of an adventure this morning,’ said the professor, closing his notebook and slipping it into his pocket.
‘Really?’ said Bee.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Loo.
Simon rubbed his head. ‘A bit bruised,’ he said. ‘Nothing serious.’
Loo walked over to him and gazed into his face, her dark eyes serious, brimming with tears. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘No, Loo, I’m fine.’
‘I’m sorry, Simon,’ she said. ‘Was it the poltergeist?’
‘I thought they stayed in the house,’ said Bee. ‘Poltergeists.’
‘Well, maybe this one doesn’t,’ said the professor. ‘Maybe this one likes to get out.’
That night Michael, Simon and Isobel stayed for dinner. It was a special occasion, to say thank you, to say goodbye. Simon showed Loo how to bake apples: they sat at the kitchen table side by side preparing a tray of knobbly green Bramleys.