The Haunter (The Sentinels Series Book 2)

by David Longhorn

  Someone took my Martha away. Why can't I remember what happened?

  Among the dust-sheeted furniture, the caretaker wanders, through the shuttered library, along dark corridors and through the stone-walled kitchen. A lost soul, one moment he is crossing the mirrored ballroom, the next, he is searching cupboards below the stairs. He slams doors and rattles windows, knocks crockery and ornaments to the floor in his frantic search. Marlow cannot rest. He must keep moving, searching, on his lonely quest for the woman he's always called his better half. But, as he crosses the conservatory for what might be the hundredth time, instead of Martha, he finds someone else.

  “I did try to warn you.”

  Marlow stands gaping at a pale gray figure that seems to have just materialized. It is an old man dressed in a costume from a bygone age. The stranger is wearing a powdered wig, complete with a black ribbon in a bow, a dark velvet coat, knee-breeches and pale stockings above shoes with huge buckles.

  Like someone in a film about the olden days, thinks Marlow.

  “Who are you?” he asks. “Have you seen Martha?”

  The strangely-dressed man shakes his head.

  “No, but I'm sure I'll run into her at some point, my good fellow. As will you.”

  “I have to find Martha! I can't live without her!”

  Now, the stranger laughs, not unkindly, but the sound is hollow and somehow dusty. Something is bothering Marlow about this man; apart from his odd costume and the fact that he shouldn't be in the Manor anyway. Now he realizes what it is. Marlow can see through him. The frame of the door to the garden is just visible through the man's body. Marlow, horrified, takes a step back.

  “Oh my god, you're a ghost!”

  “I know,” replies the man, with an indulgent smile. “It's one of the first things I noticed, after I died.”

  ***

  Herbert Croft hangs up his hat and coat, looks at the heap of files that still clutter his desk, and sighs.

  “More headaches, boss?” asks Sergeant Armstrong, entering the office with a mug of tea in one hand and a file in the other.

  “Certainly a bit more paperwork, lad,” replies Croft. “The legal owner of the Furniss estate has been located, after quite a bit of fuss with the powers that be. That chap at the Defense Ministry was right about him taking the night train. He and his wife, plus two friends from London, are in Newcastle now. I offered them a lift up to Furniss in one of our cars. It doesn't hurt to be on good terms with the lord of the manor.”

  “Did you tell him about the girl vanishing?” asks Armstrong, as he skillfully finds a spot on Croft's cluttered desk to set down the battered tea mug.

  “No, we can't officially link that to the Manor, can we?” says Croft. “No sign she ever got there. I just mentioned our nameless corpse. Speaking of, did we get anything from Scotland Yard?”

  Armstrong hands over the file.

  “Yes, they came through. Turns out he was a villain just like you suspected! Name was Traven, originally from Birmingham, in and out of custody since he was a kid.”

  “Yes, thank you, Armstrong, my reading skills are unimpaired. Update the case file and start showing his photo around the area. Plenty of copies, no expense spared. At least we know what our stiff looked like, before he got all . . . all shriveled up.”

  “Should we switch any men from the search for the Warburton girl, sir?”

  “Yes, we can spare a couple. Be discreet, though. It's not looking good, but we can't be seen giving up at this stage.”

  Armstrong leaves and Croft begins to sip his tea, musing on the latest developments.

  What possible connection can there be between a sixteen-year-old village girl who'd never been more than ten miles from home and a career criminal from outside the area?

  Croft pulls some dog-eared files from underneath the heap of newer ones. They are all dated 1875 and concern six unexplained deaths and a disappearance in which a body was never found. No suspects were identified by police. There was just one common factor, Furniss Manor. He opens one file, looks at a crude Victorian photograph of a victim. A twelve-year-old boy who'd escaped from a reformatory was found so desiccated and fleshless that one officer compared his body to that of an unwrapped Egyptian mummy.

  “Nice turn of phrase,” mutters Croft to himself.

  He rifles through more cases. Another child, a girl this time, was found in the same horrific state as the boy. An elderly butler at the Manor was a victim, and he apparently disappeared inside the house when locked up for the night. His corpse, like the others, was found on the grounds a few weeks later. The list goes on, a blot on the record of the police and a major scandal at the time. But the disappearances ended as suddenly as they'd begun, no more bodies were found. And most people forgot, as they often do. Still, all the cases remain open to this day.

  So if it's anything like last time, the new wave of vanishings will quickly produce a heap of corpses. And I've no idea what to do about it except put boots on the ground and keep asking questions.

  Something catches his eye. It's a sepia photograph of one crime scene, very rare in those days, and shows officers standing self-consciously over a corpse. The photographer, Croft recalls, would have been a commercial one hired by the force. Perhaps, for this reason, the photo is a rather artistic composition; the body in the foreground, police standing stiffly over it, and the lower half of an impressive marble statue forming a backdrop. Croft gets a magnifier out of a drawer and looks more closely. The name on the pedestal is blocked by a policeman but he can make out a symbol on the plinth. It's a circle with an arrow sticking out of it in the half-past-one position.

  “Bloody statues again,” he mutters, and skims all the Victorian reports. All but one mention a body being found near a statue, but there's a frustrating lack of detail as to precise locations. Yet it's clear that the 1875 photo is not the figure of Mercury. Could it be that one body was dumped for each statue in the manor's garden?

  Great, Croft thinks. What on earth can that mean? That we're looking for some murderous nutcase with a thing for sculpture?

  “Can't be the same nutcase, though, after seventy years,” he muttered to himself.

  He goes back the faded brown photograph, checks the sparse details.

  “The deceased was a vagrant, well-known in the area, believed to be a veteran of the Crimean War.”

  Again, there's no obvious link to any other victim.

  And yet, something convinces Croft that there is a pattern here above and beyond the link to Furniss Manor.

  If only I can figure out what it is, I might have some chance of avoiding professional disgrace. Hell, if I crack this one, I might even get into the County Golf Club.

  ***

  “Well, here we are,” says the police driver, turning the patrol car off the main road.

  Rachel, being the smallest, has inevitably been wedged between Bill and Charlotte in the back seat, and struggles to catch sight of Tony's ancestral home. She catches glimpses of a wall, stone gateposts topped by weathered heraldic beasts, and leafless wintry woodlands. The police car emerges from the forest road onto open ground.

  “Good grief,” exclaims Tony. “I never realized it was this big.”

  “But a bit ill-proportioned,” says Charlotte. “That tower at the far corner looks like it's part of a different building entirely.”

  “Perhaps it was,” says Bill. “We're on the Scottish border, remember, and a lot of these stately homes started out as fortresses before being rebuilt in more peaceful times.”

  Rachel can't see the house at all, so instead, looks out of the side windows at the gardens. There's not much to see except rolling acres covered in snow. Here's a statue, some kind of ancient Greek character barely wearing what looks like a bed-sheet. And there's a diminutive figure standing by the statue, staring at the car as it passes. Rachel only gets a brief glimpse in the uncertain morning light, but she thinks it's a young girl in a dress, sans coat or hat.

  They b
reed 'em tough up here in the North, I guess, thinks Rachel.

  The car pulls up in front of Furniss Manor and everyone climbs out. Rachel stands for a few moments looking up at the house, but she's too close to get a real sense of how it looks. She gets an impression of a gray stone building with two rows of tall, narrow windows and a tower at the corner to her right. The round tower, she can tell even from here, looks much older than the rest of the house.

  “Odd, isn't it?” says Tony, following her gaze. “Apparently, the house has often been refurbished over the centuries, but they never interfered with the tower. It dates back to medieval times, when Furniss was a border castle.”

  “So, where did they find this poor guy's body?” asks Rachel. They've all been a bit subdued since hearing about the grim discovery on the estate.

  The officer points at one of the statues that dot the grounds.

  “And nobody knows how he got there?” asked Bill.

  “No, sir, he just appeared one day. Weird thing is, there was deep snow all around him but there were no footprints leading up to the statue. It's like he fell out of the sky or something.”

  Rachel feels a brief impulse to go over to the scene of the maybe-crime, but decides against it.

  Don't tempt fate. If there's trouble here it'll come to me. It always does, she thinks.

  The police officer kindly helps them get their luggage to the doorway and waits while Tony works the huge, antiquated bell-pull. They hear a ringing in the depths of the house but nobody comes.

  “Well, to be fair, they might not be expecting us until later,” says Tony. “I said we'd be changing at Newcastle to the local train, then getting a taxi at Furniss Station.”

  “I'll look round the back if you like, sir,” offers the officer. “See if anybody's about?”

  “Hang on,” says Bill. “This doesn't look properly closed.”

  He goes up to the big door and gives it a push. It swings open.

  “I know people don't always lock their doors in the country, but this is a bit worrying,” remarks Charlotte.

  “Best just check, see what's up,” agrees the officer. He pulls out his baton and enters, followed by the vacation party. The hall is empty, and nothing seems out of place except for a small brass Buddha which lies, smiling serenely, on its side by the telephone table.

  “Don't split up,” says Tony. “Let's go through the ground floor rooms together, just in case.”

  After ten minutes, there's no sign of intruders, though there is a smashed milk jug on the kitchen floor. It's also clear that the caretaker and his wife have been living in one room of the servants' quarters.

  “If they left, it was in a hurry,” says Tony. “They left all their belongings behind.”

  “Maybe they didn't leave?” says Charlotte. “Maybe they just went out to get supplies.”

  The three men go on to search the upper floors while Rachel and Charlotte wait in the hall in case the caretaker or his wife should turn up. Rachel finds herself braced for ghostly apparitions, but nothing out of the ordinary happens.

  Well, that's something.

  ***

  “But . . . but ghosts aren't real!” cries Marlow, his quest for his wife forgotten for a moment.

  “I think we will agree to differ on that point, my friend,” replied the stranger with another smile, this one tinged with sadness. The man's eyes are kind, guileless. Marlow decides that he can't be scared of this stranger, dead or alive.

  “If you're a ghost, you must know where my Martha is, surely? Don't ghosts see everything, know everything? Everything in this damned house, at least?”

  The stranger shakes his head.

  “I'm afraid you will have to rid yourself of some preconceptions, Mister Marlow.”

  “You know my name?”

  “Oh, yes, I've been watching you for some time, now, but I had hoped we wouldn't become better acquainted. As I said, I tried to warn you last night, but I'm afraid I'm very weak on the physical plane after all these years. You caught, I think, the merest glimpse of me? Maybe you heard a word?”

  Something stirs in Marlow's memory, but he can't quite recall it.

  What did happen last night? What day is it today, for that matter? I've lost all track of time.

  The stranger looks worried, now, and tilts his head as if listening.

  “Oh dear. We haven't got long.”

  Marlow senses a new presence, and at the same time, the air becomes tainted by a filthy smell. The stench is so disgusting he puts a hand over his mouth and nose, but for some reason, this has no effect.

  “I must go,” says the stranger.

  “But you haven't told me if you've seen Martha!” Marlow shouts. “I can't live without her!”

  “My friend, I'm afraid you can't live at all. But you will be a long time dying.”

  Now the stench is almost unbearable. Marlow sinks to his knees, gagging. The stranger looks pained, turns away.

  “I'll see you again later, when he's finished with you. I'm so sorry I couldn't help.”

  And the stranger is gone, leaving through the door without troubling to open it.

  Marlow tries to crawl after him, but now the reek overpowers him and he collapses on the floor of the conservatory. Some invisible force starts to pull at him, and he begins to slide over the dusty tiles, back the way he came.

  “Martha!” he croaks, and wonders how he can speak at all with no air in his lungs.

  All is darkness as Marlow plunges into an abyss, returning to the black pit his spirit escaped for a little while. He's not alone in the darkness. Something titters behind him. His head is caressed by moist hands that feel both flabby and immensely strong.

  “Oh, Ted, you left me to go and look for your wife! That's so touching. But you needn't have bothered. Why, I brought her here first, so you could always be together. See!”

  A ghastly glow reveals a cramped, windowless space, and Marlow is indeed re-united with his better half. The hands force his head down to show him Martha lying, eyes closed, on the filthy floor of the chamber. She is not alone, but has been posed, arms entwined in a parody of a loving embrace with a wizened old man. For a moment, the caretaker feels a pang of jealousy and anger. Then Ted Marlow recognizes the man who is lying facing Martha. As the flabby hands fasten onto him and start to force his tormented spirit back into his body, he screams.

  ***

  “Did you hear that?” asks Rachel.

  She shivers, looks at the front door, but it's firmly closed.

  Perhaps a window's open somewhere? Could that be the wind howling?

  “Hear what?” asks Charlotte.

  Rachel hushes her friend. It could’ve been a scream, but a faint one. Maybe it came from outside? she thinks.

  Rachel gets up and opens the front door. Charlotte stubs her cigarette out in an ashtray by the phone and joins her.

  “What did you hear? Someone coming?”

  Rachel shakes her head.

  “Someone or something crying out in pain. I'm not sure.”

  There's no sound now. Did I imagine it? The old house and its surroundings are certainly spooky enough, especially in this weak winter light.

  “Foxes have a weird bark, though they tend to be nocturnal. And there are birds out there, presumably,” says Charlotte. “Hey, let's close the door, the place is cold enough as it is!”

  Rachel does as she's asked and sits down again, still puzzled.

  “Well, here's another little mystery,” says Charlotte, lighting up yet another cigarette.

  “Those things will kill you,” says Rachel.

  “Ridiculous! They're cool and sexy and they help me keep the weight off.”

  “They stunt the growth,” returns Rachel.

  “I'm five foot nine!”

  “Yes, but if you'd never smoked, you'd have been seven foot three,” says Rachel, and they both start laughing.

  “Glad you ladies are having fun,” says Bill, descending the main staircase.
r />   “I take it there are no burglars to be found?” asks Rachel.

  “Nope, no sign of burglary,” he replies emphatically. “Perhaps the caretaker left the door open by accident when he went out.”

  “Let's hope so, sir,” says the policeman, coming down into the hall and walking to the phone. “But I'd better let the boss know, just in case.”

  Chapter 6: Lost and Found

  “You're not going to believe this, boss,” says Sergeant Armstrong, standing in the office doorway. There's a broad grin on his normally impassive face.

  “Go on, amaze me,” replies Croft. “Another disappearance? Another corpse? Hitler arrested for traveling on a bus without a ticket?”

  “We've got a lady who claims to have vital evidence about the Furniss affair,” says Armstrong. Before he can explain further, an extraordinary figure sweeps him aside and advances into the room like a stately ship under full sail. Croft stares up at a large, dark-eyed woman in a voluminous fur coat and Russian-style fur hat.

  “Are you the officer in charge of the Furniss case?” asks the woman.

  The detective scrambles to his feet, caught off guard.

  “I'm in charge of both Furniss cases,” he corrects her. “Can I help, you madam?”

  “Madam Castanos can help you, as she has helped so many before,” says the woman theatrically. She takes a seat without it being offered.

  “She is here to offer her services for the benefit of you, the splendid English police, and for the public good,” she goes on. “A great evil is at work, and she fears that all our resources combined may not be enough to contain it!”

  “I see,” says Croft. “You've come to make a statement?”

  “Madam Castanos has come to provide revelations!”

  Well, he thinks, she's obviously got money, and that probably means influence, so I'd better show some respect. For now.