Strange Tombs

by Syd Moore

  I nodded. Of course I remembered her. She had been a terrible sight – sores around her mouth, thin and ill. I would never forget it.

  He smiled fractionally. ‘She directed you over to the cellar, the one next to La Fleur, just at that crucial moment. What a coincidence eh? Just when there was a power cut and alarms on the cellar failed where they were keeping those poor women. She alerted you. And yet she was so similar to the depictions of the Foundling girl who had been kept in La Fleur all those centuries ago. A girl who had been tied up and tortured to death. Plus it is worth noting that she, the girl you said you saw, she never showed up on any footage.’

  I stammered, ‘She, um, she was too far away …’

  Sam’s voice was become emphatic, almost aggressive. ‘And yet you described her as flitting. The very same word you used to describe this manifestation here.’ He pointed to the shimmery darkness on the screen.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But …’ I didn’t know what to object to. He was right. I just didn’t like where he was going with it.

  He lowered his voice so it was more gentle. ‘All these coincidences are piling up, Rosie. I think it’s time to talk about them.’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘From a purely statistical point of view, these events could be considered to be random. Not meaningfully related.’

  ‘Is that so?’ he said and pouted.

  ‘What about our motto – “open mind, healthy scepticism?”’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. And an open mind doesn’t mean knee-jerking into denial.’ Sam folded his hands on his lap and rubbed the middle knuckle on his right hand.

  He hit play again. ‘Is it possible?’ his eyes swung back to the screen. ‘That this is a non-human entity interacting with you?’

  Film Me looked at the floor, then over to Film Friend Cerise, who was gesticulating wildly. Film Me looked back at the gas cloud. It was dissipating. Now I could see only slender ribbons of transparent darkness hanging in the air. The camera angles swapped and Film Me jogged towards Cerise.

  Sam stopped the recording. ‘And that’s the point, Rosie,’ he said, a bit like a teacher. ‘These things, they are always interacting with you.’

  I wasn’t sure if he was accusing me of something. ‘Which means what?’

  ‘I don’t know? I’m going to send this to Monty’s science guys. See what they make of it.’

  I’d never heard of them before but guessed they were in the secret Ministry.

  I didn’t say anything, but stared at the screen for a minute until Sam said, ‘What if you’re a conduit?’

  ‘You mean like an aqueduct?’ I asked not unfacetiously.

  He sighed. ‘If you want to put it like that.’

  I thought of Roman Britain.

  Then Sam said, ‘What if you are like a magnet that attracts these … phenomena or whatever they are?’

  This kind of talk began to alarm me. ‘There’s got to be another explanation. What about being a sceptic Sam?’

  He smiled easily at last. ‘Well that was much easier before I met you.’

  I tried to smile but I was feeling queasy.

  ‘Well, some would say, it doesn’t matter what you believe. It’s all about the evidence.’

  ‘Empirical evidence,’ I said glumly for want of anything better.

  We both sat in our chairs and looked at the screen.

  ‘That’s the thing that truly terrifies me,’ said Sam. ‘That this here is empirical evidence.’

  ‘But of what?’ I said nervously.

  He shrugged. ‘The whole darn gamut. If we’ve got a ghost, then that means it’s evidence of the afterlife, the soul – a whole raft of belief systems become validated and compounded.’

  ‘Oh god,’ I said. ‘That sounds like big league stuff.’

  ‘I know,’ he said and nodded quietly. ‘We have to be responsible about what we now do.’

  After a moment more, I shook my head and said, ‘No. It’s ridiculous. I’m not buying it. There’s got to be a logical explanation for this.’

  ‘Of course there’s an explanation for it,’ said Sam. ‘It just might not be logical.’

  His closing thoughts on the matter did not help me on my way to sleep that night I have to admit. In fact, after tossing and turning for a good hour, I decided to get up and do some stuff. I put a load of washing on downstairs. Then I phoned Monty. I thought he wouldn’t answer, but he picked it up on the ninth ring.

  He sounded jaunty, as always. Didn’t matter what time of day or night it was, Mr Walker was always daisy-fresh.

  ‘Rosie,’ he whispered. ‘Is this urgent?’

  ‘No,’ I said frankly. ‘Do you want me to phone back?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But you know what you’re like.’

  That was indeed a fair comment. I did tend to call Monty whenever I felt my life was in danger.

  ‘What’s up then?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got a couple of minutes. But I’m out on an observation. Interesting case,’ he added. ‘Melting frogs.’

  I ignored the last piece of information which would just unleash more questions and right now I had a couple of them on the go, and truly, madly, deeply that was so so enough to be going on with. ‘I was going to ask you if you could do some kind of Military Intelligence background check on everyone at Ratchette Hall.’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘Text me their names, I haven’t got a pen to hand. But use your OTHER phone. The one I gave you.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I said.

  ‘And don’t show anyone else.’

  ‘All right, I won’t.’

  ‘How’s it going anyway?’ he asked.

  ‘Good,’ I lied. ‘Just need to do a bit more investigation. One of the bodies has gone walkabout from the church.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Monty.

  ‘Not literally,’ I added.

  ‘I guessed,’ he said but didn’t laugh.

  I sighed. ‘After the conversation I’ve just had with Sam I can’t take any chances.’

  ‘How so?’ Monty’s voice now included another tone suggestive of mild curiosity.

  ‘He’s got some footage back from the lab and it’s completely freaked him out. He thinks there might be evidence of a ghost on it. You should have a look at it when he sends it to your “science guys––”’

  ‘I’ve already seen it,’ he said at once. ‘Tell him not to bother sending copies. We are putting it through some extensive testing and close analysis …’

  ‘What? But he hasn’t sent it back yet––’

  Monty’s voice went quiet. ‘I have a man at the lab, Rosie,’ he said. ‘Sam doesn’t realise he’s not looking at the master. We have that under close wraps right now. And don’t tell him either. We haven’t tampered. We just needed to ensure we had the original.’

  Of course he did. I wasn’t surprised. British Intelligence. They had men everywhere.

  ‘And how is Sam coping with the conclusion he appears to be drawing?’

  ‘Mmm,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I suppose he would be like that,’ Monty said inexplicably.

  Interesting, I thought. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Monty paused. ‘How much do you know about Sam’s background?’ he asked. ‘Has he told you yet?’

  I was shocked by the statement and retorted, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘His family,’ said Monty. ‘What happened to them.’

  ‘His family?’ I repeated. ‘Well, I know his mum and dad live in the States. There’s a sister in Ibiza, amazingly. That’s about it. Why? What happened to them?’

  A voice in the background said, ‘Sir,’ then another female, further back, started to swear.

  Monty’s voice became more clipped. ‘Sorry Rosie,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  Then he hung up.

  Leaving me very much in the dark.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘It was shimmering, like a figure on a rack stretched with pain and tortured. And yet dark. Shimmering, shimmering, shimm
ering darkly. Like they had got off the rack and were the other way round and floating, hovering. Like an angel. Yes, yes – an archangel! Oh my god! An archangel, like Michael, returning from above to herald the apocalypse, the end of times, to sound the trumpet, complete the prophecy and dispense apocryphal everlasting justice. It was there, it was commotioning and the commotion bellowed “I am coming for you, for you all.”’ Chris Devlin took a breath. ‘Then suddenly it just vanished, like that.’ He snapped his fingers, narrowed his eyes and nodded at us.

  I prodded the assortment of twigs and leaves on the floor and looked into the sloping forestry at the edge of the Hall grounds.

  ‘Couldn’t it simply have walked off?’ asked Sam after a bit. He was standing by Devlin looking at the area where a phantom had allegedly been sighted last night.

  ‘No,’ said Devlin sounding really put out. ‘It wasn’t like that. It was MAGNIFICENT. It was crazy.’ He looked at his shoes, which evidently agreed with him, nodded again, then looked up and added, ‘It was awesome.’

  Now I was listening to him in the flesh I realised his voice had an East Coast curl to it, though I had always thought he was British. He looked American, with the tan and stiff jeans and that.

  ‘You know, this is really fantastic,’ Devlin continued, his voice rising to match his enthusiasm. ‘I love it. I couldn’t have asked for a better residency. I can use this. We all can. You know, the fear was exhilarating. Honest to goddam god, I experienced such a totally, like, evocative response.’ He glanced at me and looked back at Sam. ‘It made me hard.’

  Monty had once told me that when you were an investigator there was no such thing as ‘too much information’. But I think Chris Devlin had just proved him wrong.

  ‘Oh,’ said Margot, breathily. ‘Chris, I feel you.’

  She wished, I thought, then told myself off. Older women were just as entitled to weird sexual peccadillos as younger ones. And though Mr Devlin did nothing to float my boat I could see his wealth, power and success might enhance his nautical buoyancy in certain female eyes. Or male ones. Though Devlin seemed so straight he was almost a parody. Which meant there were always possibilities there.

  For me, personally, the Lovejoy mullet was a massive turn-off. And my radar might be a little wonky at the moment but that man had ‘stadium rock fan’ coming off him in heavily amplified waves. I bet he liked Bon Jovi.

  ‘I mean,’ Margot recovered herself, ‘I know what you mean, Chris.’

  Cullen, the final member of our expedition, who had shadowed Devlin the whole time and was now staring at him with his mouth open, said, ‘Commotioning – is that a word?’

  The famous author looked at his fanboy with an expression of pity then slapped him on the back. ‘Cullen, my man, you want success, you gotta play outside the rules. Embrace the maverick within. Think, watch, observe. Ask questions. Communicate freely. Let your spirit flow.’

  Cullen nodded, suitably chastised. I felt a bit sorry for him, despite the whole creepy serial killer vibe: I bet Devlin had a whole host of proofreaders who regularly cleaned up his freely flowing spirit. Mind you they were probably used to that sort of thing over there – a lot of their top brass tended to ‘misspeak’ and make ‘misstatements’ these days.

  ‘So,’ said Sam, swivelling back to face Devlin. ‘This commotioning then – when did it actually take place?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ Chris rubbed his chin and strutted over towards me to join in my peering duties. ‘Jetlag,’ he explained as he swaggered. ‘After midnight, for sure.’

  ‘About two, I’d say,’ Margot confirmed. ‘I’m a light sleeper.’

  ‘Did you hear it?’ Sam asked Cullen.

  He looked like he wanted to nod, to join in, but he shook his head and said sadly, ‘No. But I would have liked to.’

  ‘So it was a thin shimmer?’ Sam was noting it down.

  Devlin stared into the woods and blinked. ‘Oh yeah – a shimmering, er, shimerescence.’

  I glanced at him out the side of my eyes. I’d never heard that one before.

  Margot piped up, ‘I thought it had horns.’

  ‘I can’t say I saw horns, because I was thinking angels,’ Devlin said and didn’t elaborate.

  ‘I was thinking horns,’ said Margot, letting her eyes swivel over the minor bulge in Devlin’s jeans. Oh yeah, Margot, I bet you were, I thought but didn’t miss-say. ‘After your talk about witches and the Devil,’ Margot continued to explain to Sam in a tone of voice that seemed to suggest all this was his fault. ‘Your story about the Canine-ass.’

  ‘Cernunnos,’ Sam corrected.

  Margot bit her lip. ‘Yes. But, at the same time, my eyes, you know, they’re not as good as they used to be …’ She shook her head with regret.

  ‘And it made a noise?’ Sam continued. He looked dubious, which was a marked change from his attitude last night. But nonetheless welcome, as far as I was concerned. I liked Sam more that way. That was the norm. Deviations from it worried me. Personally, I couldn’t really understand why the footage had wired him so. I remained unconvinced. Though perhaps combined with the grave episode and a bang on the head …

  Then there was also Monty’s hint dropped with a clang last night that there was something else going on with my dear friend. Something disturbing that involved his family.

  But it would all have to wait because Chris Devlin was bellowing out a noise hybrid that sounded like both a chimpanzee taking fright and the kind of grunts the bestselling author probably made when he was having shouty sex.

  ‘Like that,’ he finished and puffed out his chest with pride, nodding at Cullen for confirmation.

  For the first time since I’d met him the young man looked afraid. ‘Er …’ he said.

  Margot touched her hair. Her voice broke as she muttered, ‘Oh yes, Chris.’

  Ew.

  I picked up a stick and tried to dislodge some mud from my boots. This soggy environment wasn’t any good for embroidered leather. There was already a damp patch on my right toe that was turning the purple into more of an aubergine shade.

  Sam cleared his throat. ‘Right. It made some kind of noise. Possibly a “commotioning/trumpet/bellow/scream/grunt”. And then disappeared?’

  Chris nodded. ‘I was the only one to see it with my bare eyes. And yes.’ He clicked his fingers once more. ‘It went, oh yeah, it went in the flash of a blink.’

  Gawd, I thought, his editors must really look forward to getting his drafts in.

  I glanced up and saw Sam was also now watching the woods.

  Despite the fact it was morning, the day was overcast and the darkness of the trees foreboding. The forest was thick with ferns and boulders or fallen logs. I could see mulch on the floor, leaves that had fallen off in last night’s storm, and not been cleared away or absorbed yet. There was still a smattering of green leaves holding on. And a couple of dashes of colour too – bushes with purple berries, a couple of patches of pinky-mauve and yellow flowers that were still out and hadn’t yet realised it was November. A thin blue flower bobbed its head deeper in. As I took my eyes off a thick bush with dark frothy leaves growing out of the roots of an old oak, a grey squirrel popped its head out. Sensing eyes upon it, it froze, beheld the scene, then ran up the trunk into the branches above.

  And who could blame it?

  ‘But you can’t say for sure that it didn’t go in there? Into the woods?’ asked Sam. For a second I thought he was referring to our little furry friend. Then I remembered it was an angel. Or possibly a devil. Or a devilish archangel. Of course.

  Devlin also looked into the wood. ‘Not to my knowledge,’ he said. Which didn’t really seem like an appropriate answer to me.

  Sam let it go.

  I went back to my boots. The mud had come off the heel now. Looked much better like that.

  ‘So I’m getting the distinct impression,’ Sam continued with his probing, drawing my attention from the other current loves of my life, ‘that it wasn’t necessarily, e
r, witchlike? Or what you might come to think of as witchlike?’

  ‘No,’ said Devlin, speaking for the three of them. ‘Carole had something to say about the Devil and a bell, but I’m not sure it was a bell I heard. More like the death calls of a carrion demon, a discharge of fury from the Devil’s hell-hounds, the raspy bellow of Lucifer himself.’

  We all stared at him.

  I tossed my stick into the wood. Margot jumped.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said and noticed that she was shivering. ‘How about we go inside? Then we can warm up with coffee.’ I held Sam’s eyes. ‘And have a chat with Carole.’

  The rest of the group returned to the Seminar Room at the front of the house, where Laura was apparently holding a character-building workshop. As if they needed more in these trying circumstances.

  Sam and I decided to look for Carole. I was pleased to see my colleague’s mood had picked up a fair bit since last night. He hadn’t mentioned the ‘ghost’ again and I hadn’t told him about my conversation with Monty. Of course, I was completely intrigued by what the agent had said, but realised if it was a big subject that affected Sam quite fundamentally then I would have to move slowly. Certainly, as gently as he moved with me and my family’s myriad secrets.

  Carole Christmas, full of joy and benevolence, was in the kitchen clearing up whilst whistling to the tune of ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’.

  ‘Oh ’ello,’ she said and sniffed and stopped whistling. ‘They said you’d be coming. Ain’t got no food. They ate it all. Don’t hold back this lot. Not when other people are making it. But there’s no lunch to be had. They’re all going down the pub. We reserved the snug. I’m off there meself in a couple of hours. Then I’ll be back to sort dinner.’

  ‘It’s okay, thanks,’ I told her. ‘We haven’t come to eat. Chris Devlin was telling us there was another incident in the night. And that you had something to say on it?’

  Her face dropped into classic indignation mode, her shoulders hunched. She thumped a wooden spoon on the counter. ‘I had nothink to do with it. Nothink.’