“Hello,” she said, then sat down opposite him.
“I’ve had a bacon roll; do you want anything?” he replied, not looking up.
“Er… no. What’s that?” She looked at the small, black box.
“It’s me ghost box.” He tapped it on the table, making his mug of strong tea vibrate.
“A what?”
He looked up. “A ghost box…” He tutted. “Like a radio, but this one makes white noise; you know, that ‘shushing’ noise you get on a radio between stations. Sometimes you hear the dead on it; they speak on it and say shit.”
“Oh…” She didn’t sound convinced.
She looked through the window at the street. Two spirit women, twins by the looks of it and dressed identically, stood staring in the café window, wearing outfits from the 1950s.
She tapped him. “There are two over there; can your radio thing pick them up?”
“Two what?” he asked.
“Ghosts… What else? Standing by the window, on the outside looking in; two women.”
Andy looked at the window and saw nothing. “What are they doing?”
“Just looking in.”
“If I went out there now and stood by ’em, would they do anything?”
“I don’t know; they are like living people. If you stand next to that trucker in the corner, will he do something? The question is daft.”
Andy brought a small suitcase out from under the table and popped the black box inside. He brought out another handheld box, this time with an array of colours at the top. “Hold on,” he said, then he got up and hurried outside.
Rachel turned and watched as he walked out the café door and stood glaring in on the far side to where the women were standing.
“Are they here?” he shouted, causing all the truckers to turn and look at him suspiciously.
She shook her head and pointed to show that he needed to move to the right of the window.
He nodded, then went to the next window, within two feet of the women. He started waving the black box about. The women turned slowly to look at him, then returned to looking intently in the café.
He hurried back in, ignoring the odd looks from the café’s patrons. “Me EMF meter says there’s nothing outside.”
She just stared at him.
He tutted. “This…” He pointed in an exaggerated fashion to the new box he was holding. “Is an electromagnetic field meter; it finds spikes in electrical activity. Where there are spirits, there is usually a surge in electrical activity.”
“But you couldn’t detect the ghosts outside…” She looked doubtful.
“Forget that,” he said with a slight irritation in his voice. “Now, listen, about this job… we go in, you say nothing unless asked, and you do what I say… You make no sudden movements and no crazy statements. When I need you to do your… thing… I will say. Look about, see what ghosts are there, if any, and then tell me when the bloke is out of earshot. OK?”
She looked up. The two women were now standing silently right behind Andy, inches from him, and both were smiling.
“Are you sure you are not picking anything up, Andy?” she asked again.
Chapter 18
Mr Easton greeted Rachel and Andy with enthusiasm, and he wasted no time in ushering them to the bedroom. Remembering her instructions, Rachel said nothing as she entered, except a greeting, then watched as Andy put on his Stetson and started scanning the room with one or other of the black boxes, which squeaked loudly. Mr Easton stood for a moment by the bedroom door, gave a quick nod to them and then hurried away downstairs.
Rachel’s attention was drawn to a cat sitting on the bed, watching her. It was a ghost cat, sleek and black, with a little white bib, just sitting there.
“Andy, shall I have a nose about?” she asked.
“Just in this room for the moment, nowhere else,” Andy confirmed.
“There is nothing here…” She looked doubtfully at the cat. “Well, not a sailor anyway.”
He turned off the machine and spun round. “You haven’t looked properly; how do you know?”
“It’s a small room; nothing is here.”
“Goddammit,” he said, then he picked up a walking stick that was propped by the bed, and started compulsively hitting the curtains with it, as if flushing out something hiding behind them.
She heard a bump in the next room and, without telling Andy, slipped outside onto the landing and eyed the closed door to the other bedroom.
“Kum by yah; oh spirit, show yourself,” wailed Andy next door.
Slowly, she approached the door and opened it a little, then peeped in. The room was in darkness, with the curtains pulled closed; clearly, it was used as a storeroom, as stuff was in boxes everywhere, covered in sheets. In the corner, she saw a figure, a man, slightly silhouetted against the curtain. He wasn’t moving; to the untrained eye, he could have been a coat thrown over a hat stand, but she knew it was a spirit. She was getting good at recognising them now.
She went in and closed the door. “Hello?” she said, “I see you there by the curtain.”
The figure jumped visibly. “No one can see me, child,” he said in a voice that was deep, male and with a kind of Cornish accent.
“I can. I hear you too.”
He stepped forwards. Yes, he was indeed a sailor and a captain. He was about sixty, with grey hair, a beard and a full captain’s uniform on. He doffed his cap. “Captain Anderson at your service… You see us? That is truly amazing.”
“Yes, I see dead people,” she sighed.
“Who is the loon next door?”
“He is looking for you; he is a psychic investigator.”
“You really see us?” He waved his hand in front of her face. “Have you come to bring me salvation?”
“Er… no… The gentleman who owns this house said he saw you floating over the bed. He called us in.”
“Floating? I wasn’t…” he stopped. “This was my home, years ago in 1910; I lived here before I went to sea.”
The door smashed open abruptly; it was Andy. “Rachel, I said to stay with me,” he declared.
“He is here; the captain.” She gestured to where the spirit stood silently.
Andy, as usual, saw nothing. “OK, great. Tell him to go, and hurry up.” He shut the door.
“Go where?” the captain replied. “You can’t bring me salvation? You aren’t the answer?”
“I am sorry.” She sat on a dusty seat. “I don’t know what the answer is, but I would respectfully ask you not to haunt this poor gentleman and his wife who live here now. Are you not able to… I don’t know… go elsewhere? Back to your ship perhaps?”
He looked mournful. “This is my home; I lived here before this couple. I died at sea, you know. My ship went down. I am not sure where else I can go. I am trapped here, you see, until God calls me home.” He looked up again. “My ship is lost, and my shipmates are dead. All my friends are gone. This is the only place I can remain till I am taken up to heaven… or the other place.” He looked slowly down at the floor.
Something began to dawn on Rachel. “What do you mean you are waiting to go to heaven? What’s that all about?”
“You don’t know? When you die, some people are taken straight away. They go, presumably to heaven and to their maker. But some of us, for reasons we don’t know, are stuck here on earth and made to wander, sometimes for years, waiting to be taken up. I pray a lot and ask God to help, but nothing happens. Maybe I am not yet good enough for heaven.”
“So, some of you don’t remain as… er… ghosts, but some do.”
“Of course… If everyone and everything that died in the world became as we do, the earth would be pretty crowded, would it not? With every soul from goodness knows where wandering about wailing to their redeemer. You would see ethereal cavemen and gh
ost dinosaurs, but you don’t, do you? No, some of us go upon death, and their souls are not seen, but we, the unlucky ones, remain. It comes to us all eventually, but some take longer than others to pass over, and no one – living or dead – knows for sure why this is.”
Rachel felt the sadness coming from him. She felt pity. “Look, I can’t help you; I just see you, and I don’t know why I do. I think you should stay here, but make an effort so that the couple who live here now don’t see you anymore; will you do that?”
The captain looked up. “Yes; yes, of course. I got excited one night and allowed myself to be seen. I never wanted to scare anyone.”
“I suppose that will do. Look, I am going to tell the other man next door that I have asked you to leave. Please just don’t bother the nice couple who live here again or they will only call us back.”
“I wouldn’t mind that. It is wonderful to find someone who sees us. Please do not go.”
Rachel felt like she hadn’t really solved anything here at all, but stood up and went to leave. “I’m sorry, I have to go,” she said apologetically. “Please remember, don’t get seen!” Without looking back, she went into the next room where Andy had resumed his assault on the curtains with the walking stick. The spectral cat had moved to a position on top of the wardrobe. She noticed a small, white splodge under its chin; she hadn’t noticed that before. It was watching Andy intently.
“The spirit has… er… gone. Our work is finished here,” she stated.
Andy stopped hitting the curtains “Gone? Gone where?”
“To another place… You asked me to tell him to leave, so I have. Captain Anderson was his name, and he died on a ship; he was lonely, so he came back to his home.”
Andy couldn’t believe his bloody luck. He had only been there twenty minutes, and they had found the spook and got rid of it. And it was a real spook to boot, not some wind-whistling-down-a-pipe nonsense.
“We’d better break the news to Mr Easton, eh?” he said, grinning, as he packed up the Stetson and his other bits and pieces into the case.
Downstairs, Mr Easton sat transfixed as Andy told him their findings. Mr Easton said he would research Captain Anderson and see who the man was, and he was very pleased to hear he had moved on. “To sea, no doubt,” he finished.
Rachel smiled.
Andy happily took the fee. Rachel didn’t see how much it was, but it was a large wad of notes, maybe £1,000, and she wondered how much Andy was going to pay her. He then hurried out through the front door, leaving her behind in the hallway.
Rachel turned to face Mr Easton. “Oh, and by the way, your black cat, with the little white bib, is very happy in your room.” She smiled then walked straight out, closing the door behind her.
Mr Easton felt a sudden wave of emotion come over him, tears pricked gently at his eyes and his legs felt a little weak, so he sat down on the heavily patterned sofa. “Toby cat,” he said slowly. “You never left…”
Chapter 19
The young girl walked along, swaying through the trees; she had drunk far too much alcohol on her night out, but still she believed she knew the quickest way to get home. Her mother had said she must keep enough money for the taxi home from her friend’s birthday party, but, of course, she had spent it on drink.
Walking through Darkfoot Wood was the quickest way home. Emboldened by her drunkenness, she didn’t seem worried about who might see her; she just wanted to get back to bed and sleep it off. Thoughts crept into her mind about whether she would have to suffer a hangover tomorrow for this or whether she would get away with it. Her clothes didn’t help her walking; she had a tight dress on, which she could hardly breathe in; a large coat; and, making everything worse, high heels she could barely walk on the pavement in, let alone on grass and mud.
She stumbled and fell on a fallen tree branch, gashing her leg. As she sat rubbing the wound, she swore she heard a sound behind her: a snapped twig, very loud, as if something or someone heavy had stood on it. A tiny flash of fear filled her mind, but only for a couple of seconds. The woods were full of animals and odd sounds, so worrying about one was stupid. She had used the torchlight from her phone to get this far, but the battery had died – probably from being overused at the party – so now she had to press on in semi-darkness.
She carried on wobbling through the wood, hoping that she was heading the right way. Some street lamps lit a road that ran alongside most of the way, and it was a full moon, so she could see her way forwards a little. But shapes and faces still seemed to leer out of the trunks of every tree and the branches of each bush, and little animal eyes shone in the darkness. Determined, she walked on towards Shore Moat.
Shore Moat sat in the middle of Darkfoot Wood; it had been there for centuries and maps from as early as the 13th century have it marked upon them. Some said it had once encircled a fortified building (ancient pottery, tiles, daggers and other artefacts had been dug up in excavations years ago), and this building, whatever it was, apparently had an underground dungeon with seven-foot-thick stone walls, with huge chains attached to them. This was all apparently discovered through amateur excavations in the past, before it had become a protected area. Whatever had been built on Shore Moat, it was not a peaceful home for a country squire; it was a place of war and death, that much was certain.
The water of the moat glowed slightly, with a green tint from the algae, giving it a kind of spooky, ethereal appearance. She stumbled on again, hoping this was the right way for the road; she had no idea of the time and was getting confused.
The thing sat crouched low beside the trunk of a large, old tree. It had placed one huge, hairy hand atop its head, mimicking what chimps often do in the sunlight, but the red of its eyes could be seen beneath. It watched the girl stumble past where it was sitting, and it remained still as she paused beside it, looked about with a worried frown on her face, then walked on. No human could ever see the thing, so it didn’t matter. The creature watched as she staggered off into the distance, contemplating this as it brought its hand down and scratched its haunch. As the man silently walked past, following the path of the girl, again it didn’t move. He paused right where the thing was, but, unlike the girl, he didn’t look around, just stopped, made no movement, then walked on.
The thing stretched out, like a cat emerging from sleep, then silently, except for the odd crack of a twig, followed the man and the girl into the darkness, with its ape-like shuffle.
Chapter 20
Dr William Maxwell was now truly vexed. He had, after spending days wandering into the most unpleasant parts of town, tracked down the place where the lady who could see the dead lived. He absolutely had to speak to her without delay. Since he had died in a fire in 1852, which he strongly suspected was arson, he had spent most of his deathtime trying to solve the mystery of why he had ended up stuck on earth.
Had he not done enough to gain redemption? Fair enough, most of his life had been spent working in science and anatomy – he had little time for prayer or bowing his head to the altar – but then this might have been the problem. He also admitted that, in his earlier years, he had played court to rather a lot of women. Perhaps God was displeased, and thought this man of science liked the physical so much that he could remain on earth to repent. But now everything had changed. This lady who could see and commune with the dead was here. He needed to find her and tell her how important it was that she works with him to help all souls trapped in this state of limbo.
He had found details of where she worked in the newspaper article. After speaking to a ghost of a cleaner in her school, he had tracked down her street and now he just needed the house number where she lived.
William looked at the large townhouses, which were now split into flats, one of which no doubt Rachel lived in. Today, he wore a top hat and a large, black coat that flared at the bottom. These were accompanied, as usual, by his white shirt, simple shoes and a loose
-fitting necktie. When dead, it wasn’t hard to dress. All he needed to do was imagine the outfit he wanted to wear and it appeared on him. Well, that was the theory. Once, he had imagined his top hat but thought of it incorrectly, so it had materialised in a bright-red colour, which was very embarrassing. It had taken him the best part of an hour to reimagine the right colour. A friend had once appeared naked in front of others as a result of failing to imagine the appropriate attire. It could be problematic.
He stood staring up at the townhouses. He liked townhouses; in his lifetime, people used to occupy multiple floors, with whole families living together and often with servants in the basement. Now, they were flats, and only very few people had servants. Things had changed and not for the better in most cases.
A group of spirit Orthodox Jews gathered at the end of the street and eyed him suspiciously. There were nine of them in total; they remained in the middle of the road, and began swaying and calling out in Hebrew. The black-clad huddle of men, with white scarves about their necks, and the Torah in their hands, wailed and bobbed. What was all that in aid of? It wasn’t even Friday.
He moved to a better position, where he could see all the houses clearly, and sat on a concrete bollard. He would remain there and wait as long as it took, as he had to talk to Rachel. Henry, the annoying young man Nanny had introduced him to, had said he wanted to accompany the doctor to help ‘convince’ Rachel. Dr Maxwell had thought differently; he couldn’t see how Henry would make the situation any better, but could foresee numerous opportunities for him to make everything a thousand times worse. To appease the fervent fop, he had said he would return and teach Henry ‘the ways of men’ if Henry would just let him get on with this quest alone. It had seemed to satisfy Henry, who was apparently keen to leave the group of children that Nanny cared for.
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