“I… er,” began Rachel, as she and Laya stood there, eyes locked.
“Speak!” bellowed the sheikh.
“Er… An— Mr Horton has found a spirit.” It was all Rachel could think of saying. She pointed feebly to the kitchen door. From somewhere in the house, Andy’s bellowing voice could be clearly heard over the music as he chanted, “Begone from this house, oh spirit, and leave Mr Rahman in peace. Namaste… Namaste…”
Instead of being relieved, Sheikh al-Rahman looked furious. “He dare speak heathen words in my home!” He swiftly passed his pipe to Laya and hurried down the corridor in the direction of Andy’s voice, his robes flapping.
Rachel went to speak. Then she saw it. Thinking back she had seen it seconds earlier from the corner of her eye but hadn’t noticed it properly till then. It was a black speck on the clear, white wall at the top of the stairs, growing larger and larger, and spreading in a roughly circular shape. It looked as if someone was blasting the darkest ink through the wall from behind and it was staining through.
By the time Rachel turned to it, the stain was about four feet across and growing. Instinctively, she began to walk up the stairs.
Laya warned, “Don’t…”
But Rachel wasn’t listening. She went up, up with each step, nearer and nearer.
Whatever it was remained silent; there was no sound or smell, just a large, inky blackness growing and growing.
Two steps away now, Rachel stopped, watching the blackness creep up across the ceiling, down the walls, around and behind her.
“Rachel… no…” Laya was now on the second step up.
Rachel dragged her gaze from the spectacle and turned to face her. She could see that Laya was terrified, just by looking at her eyes. She looked back towards the wall.
The face – it had a face! She could see it, in the blackness, eyes and a mouth had formed. She felt no fear or alarm, just wonderment.
Rachel could feel it, whatever it was, pushing towards her like heat. It was as if it emitted a bass vibration, yet, to her ears, it was silent.
In the distance, like a man calling from a cliff, she could hear the sheikh shouting and Andy complaining. Laya was still on the second step up, looking straight at the darkness.
Then it happened, in less than a second, a moment within a second, the darkness sucked back within itself, like sand haemorrhaging from a timer, and it was gone. Rachel felt the force of it leaving, like a rush of wind, but instead of the wind pulling away from her, she felt it blow scorching hot into her body and face.
Then there was nothing.
Rachel turned, shaking slightly, to see Laya collapsed by the handrail; the sheikh was near the foot of the stairs with his back to them, apparently oblivious to what had just happened. He was gesticulating and screaming at Andy about ‘dark forces’, who responded by desperately trying to turn off the music, which was still playing. The sheikh’s smoking pipe lay abandoned on the floor where Laya had dropped it. Rachel saw that a small amount of tobacco had fallen out, and had soiled the immaculate carpet. “Did you see that?” she said.
No one responded, so she tried again, this time louder. “Andy… did you see it?”
Looking up the stairs, he yelled, “Yes, of course I bloody did; I went after her, but she vanished. Where the hell were you? Jesus.” He stormed off.
“No, I mean…” She looked back to the wall.
Laya stood up slowly; shook her head, whether in despair or anger Rachel wasn’t sure, and then left.
Only the sheikh remained, looking up at her. “Why do you stand there, foolish woman?” he said, “The ghost has gone.” He raised a hand and pointed to the kitchen. Cursing, he bent to pick his pipe from the floor, and then strode off.
Rachel realised that neither Andy nor the sheikh had seen the thing on the stairs at all, so engrossed they had been with the old lady’s apparition. But Laya had; she had seen it.
Chapter 35
It had taken two months to arrange for the shrine to Kayleigh to be built, which was no time at all. Once Rachel had mentioned the idea to Luke Fairfax, he had gone straight to the girl’s parents. Surprisingly, they had agreed, saying it was a wonderful idea to remember their bright and happy daughter, and were honoured that Rachel – the person who had found her remains, someone so moved by her spirit – had suggested it.
They also felt that a memorial would help bring them a small degree of comfort, particularly since the police had released the man they were questioning for Kayleigh’s murder. The local oddball they had arrested had insufficient evidence against him, which meant that whoever murdered their daughter was still out there somewhere.
Luke had run a piece in the Burwood Echo, and a local business had come forward with most of the money needed to set the memorial up, and after Kayleigh’s parents had also chipped in there was enough to build a half-decent shrine.
It was basically a memorial bench, a plaque with Kayleigh’s name and face on it (her parents had chosen the ‘pouting’ picture Rachel had first seen in the crime file), plus a little, stone memorial in the shape of a teddy bear (Rachel had been told the dead girl had a thing for teddy bears). Around the area of her murder, bunches of flowers, in various states of decay, were tied to trees.
On the morning of the day of the memorial event, Rachel had woken up feeling a little sick, but, strangely enough, she had no customary pounding headache, which she thought was a good omen for the day. The shrine was to be opened by Victor Adeyemi (which had been Andy’s idea), the boss of a local butchers who had donated a majority of the funds, (Morris’s Meats) and, of course, Kayleigh’s parents.
On arrival at Darkfoot Wood, Rachel was surprised to see that about 150 people had showed up to witness its opening. She was quite proud of its construction; it was only small, but she felt it was absolutely the right thing to do.
At the allotted time, Victor, dressed in a bright-white suit and purple shirt, stepped up to the podium and mike to address the crowd. He said he was delighted to have been asked to open this beautiful shrine, dedicated to the memory of a much-loved local girl. Then was the turn of John Morris, of Morris’s Meats, who spoke at length about the eighty years his company had traded in the local area and how he had been happy to support the campaign. Lastly, Kayleigh’s father stepped up, and, for a while he could not speak; in the end he simply waved his hand slightly and thanked everyone for coming, then he stepped down tearfully.
All that remained was for Victor to step forth and cut the yellow ribbon, which had been tied across the bench seat, and declare it open.
As Rachel stood off to one side, she looked around at the crowd. It was then that she saw her, a dark-robed figure standing just to the side of one of the trees, flanked by a tall, muscular, white-robed Arab man with dark sunglasses; perhaps a bodyguard? The woman looked like Laya. Rachel could tell by the way she stood and her build. What on earth was she doing here?
Then she felt him, seconds before he spoke, as a kind of heat behind her.
“I am glad you came here, I thought I’d stop by on the off chance.”
Looking around, she saw Dr Maxwell, standing right behind her and smiling, with those familiar light-hazel eyes looking straight at her.
Rachel moved back a step so she could stand next to him and began to speak silently in her mind in reply. “It’s nice to see you here; I meant to come to the hospital, but so much has been happening…”
“So I see.”
Victor had cut the ribbon to loud applause.
“How have you been?” she asked.
“As usual, not a great deal happens when one is dead. Time just passes; you remain the same.” He smiled at her again.
She decided to bite the bullet. “I am sorry if I upset you last time; I really didn’t mean to…”
“Don’t worry; it is water under the bridge. I don’t like to speak about
my family and what happened to them… So… who is that lady then?” He inclined his head towards Laya, who had not moved a muscle throughout the ceremony.
“Oh, she’s one of the wives of Sheikh Mohammad bin al-Rahman, an Arab gentleman who asked us to investigate his haunted house.”
“You solved the problem?”
“No, not really. My partner, Andy, just reassured him that the spirit haunting his home was harmless, just a repeating imprint of a person and nothing to be concerned about, and that the house was safe.”
“So it was a memory ghost, that’s what we call them, you know; the ones that play out the same movements every time?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“So it seems all is well.”
Rachel frowned and was about to speak when Andy bounded up.
“I have handed out loads of cards for the business; lots of people are right interested in what we do, so we are going to clean up today,” Andy explained, and with that, he hurried over to where Victor was standing, surrounded by photographers. Shaking hands and proffering a Spirit of London Paranormal Investigations business card in front of the lenses, the assembled photographers snapped away.
Rachel turned to William, but he had gone. Instead, a skinny, teenage boy with a powdered wig, velvet jacket and hose stood in his place. She took a visible step back; it was as if Dr Maxwell had shape shifted.
“Dr Maxwell has left; you have bored him,” declared the boy. He then turned and left himself.
Rachel was dumbstruck for a moment, and then looked back; Laya, and the man who was presumably her bodyguard, had also gone.
Andy still held court; this time, he was having his photo taken with the meat company man, both of them doing a thumbs-up.
Rachel felt that, in spite of all the difficulties that she had been experiencing lately, at least Kayleigh’s shrine was now open and could be visited. That had been the whole aim of the exercise, and she had made it happen.
*
Mia pushed her way through the trees; she was so excited. Despite dusk having fallen half an hour ago, she could still find her way towards the memorial using the street lights from a nearby road to gently illuminate her way.
She had been devastated when her friend Kayleigh had been murdered. One minute, Mia was spending all her free time with Kayleigh, doing girlie things such as trying on clothes in her room and going out to parties, then came the news that she had been brutally killed; stabbed, it was said. She couldn’t believe it. Mia didn’t know what to do. Kayleigh had lent her a bangle a week before she died, and Mia had slept with it under her pillow from that day as a way to remember her friend. But then Mia had read about the memorial.
A psychic lady had apparently found the body whilst walking in the woods; when pressed, the woman (she thought her name was Raquel) had said Kayleigh had pointed to the ground where her remains had been buried. This had seemingly compelled this Raquel to set up the memorial.
Until her friend had died, she always known where to go when she was feeling down – Kayleigh’s house – but now the memorial would have to do. She had brought a bottle of wine, and was planning to sit on the bench and remember her friend.
Mia reached the moat, glittering green out of the corner of her eye, and then the memorial. Numerous teddy bears had been placed on the bench, in different sizes and stages of wear. She walked slowly towards it and sat down. After rummaging in her bag, she took the wine bottle out and unscrewed the lid. Slowly, she brought the bottle to her lips and took two long gulps.
The whole thing was over in less than a minute. The first thing she felt was the ligature thrown around her throat from behind and pulled tight. The bottle fell to the floor, spilling its contents in a pulsing motion onto the damp grass.
Mia’s hands flew to her throat, tugging, pulling and trying to free herself from whatever had caught her. Thoughts spun through her confused mind – maybe a bush had snagged on her or someone had left a rope on the trees – but, as it pulled tighter and tighter, she knew she was being attacked.
Before her crazed mind had time to think further, he struck, the blade swiped through the air as the attacker’s arm arched from behind, and punched through her chest into her heart, stopping it within three beats. With a swish, the blade was sucked out from her chest and the ligature was loosened.
The man walked around the bench to survey what he had done. Hastily, he threw a dark tarpaulin over the body and wrapped it around her, securing it closed with string. Grabbing her feet, he pulled the lifeless corpse from the bench; her head banged against the seat as the full dead weight landed on the floor.
Gripping her ankles tightly, he pulled Mia into the undergrowth. As the bushes closed behind them, there was hardly any trace she had ever been there, except for the discarded bottle and spilt wine. There was also some blood remaining on the bench slats and the ground, and where it had mingled with the wine; it was beginning to congeal, leaving a sticky, dark-red stain on the grass.
The thing lay back, reclining slightly against a nearby tree; it had watched the whole scene play out. Its whole body was throbbing and aglow with the magnitude of what it had just witnessed; so much so that it could hardly think. The idea, which the creature had itself doubted would work at first, was turning out to be more successful than any of its kind could have imagined.
The supreme leader, when it heard, would be pleased. The creature would then perhaps be able to meet the great one and learn from its infinite wisdom. But it should not rest on its laurels, as more still had to be done.
The raptures had passed, exhausting the creature. It took an enormous effort for it to get to its feet and stumble off, with every part of its being still tingling with what it had just observed.
Chapter 36
Rachel’s day had turned out to be very eventful, to say the least. Everything started when she received a phone call in the morning, and not from the police. It was from Ronald Easton. He told her that it looked like another girl had been attacked in the woods. The police suspected the same person had committed both crimes, and a man was already being questioned who was clearly in the frame. Rachel remembered being lost for words as he reeled off the information.
Mr Easton went on to explain that he could not say much about the suspect, other than he was a local oddball who was into the dark arts and violence. He added that, no doubt, the police would contact her in due course. Sniffer dogs and forensic teams had been sent to the wood and moat, and although the girl (whose name he wouldn’t tell her) had clearly suffered trauma there, they could not find a body. He concluded by advising that even though no body had been found, evidence at the scene did indeed indicate that the girl was dead.
She wondered if the police would call her and ask her to help again, given that she had managed to locate Kayleigh, but then again maybe they wouldn’t. Rachel had the distinct impression that the police thought she was a nutcase, and it had only been Ronald’s insistence that brought her in on the case in the first place.
The day had also been marked by her receiving a text message from John, her ex; it said he was sorry he had walked out, he had been having trouble at work, he had seen her in the paper a few times, and it seemed she was doing well for herself. Just seeing his name flash up on her phone was enough to pull at her heart. She hadn’t heard a word from him since he walked out and now he was contacting her.
She still felt something for John, so seeing the message had dredged it all up again, feelings she thought had been washed away, but the way the text was written triggered the intervention of her head rather than her heart. His mentioning that she had done well for herself particularly interested her; he probably thought she was rich now, which was far from the case. Rachel had enough money to get by, to pay the rent and bills, but not to buy expensive clothes or take holidays; she was bringing in just enough to cover living expenses only. Deep down, she knew that she and
John were not compatible, he was an uncaring, hard person, but it still hurt.
She was sitting down in her flat when she heard the familiar voice of Dr Maxwell by the front door.
“Rachel? Rachel? Are you there?” he enquired.
As soon as she heard his voice, her heart leapt to her throat; she buzzed into life as if she had instantly been infused with some kind of amphetamine. Standing up, she remembered she was wearing her cat-print onesie. Oh God, she didn’t have time to change.
“Rachel?” His voice was closer now.
She glanced out of the window. The Jews were there again; this time, there was more of them, maybe 100, all gathered around, silently facing the flat. A dark mass of overlarge, black hats and heavy coats, completely out of place in the mild weather, stood but five feet from her gate. An older man of about sixty stood at the front, holding a large, black book; he appeared to be reading from it for the benefit of the crowd. Some nodded and bobbed along to it, and others remained stock still.
A little way off, Rachel saw that the boy with the wig she had seen at the shrine was sitting on a concrete traffic bollard, looking like he was whittling a stick. She could see the little blade flashing in the light and the stick bobbing about with each flick of the knife. Now and again, the boy paused and looked at the Jews, then continued.
Dr Maxwell appeared at her living-room doorway.
“Rachel, I called out, but you didn’t respond.” His eyes looked up and down at the onesie, but said nothing.
“Sorry, you caught me unawares. The Jews are back; can you see them? I don’t know what they want from me…” she stated.
“Indeed.” he frowned.
They sat on the sofa; both were silent for a while. Rachel searched her mind for something to say. “Did you hear that another girl has been killed at the moat? The man who works with the police told me.”
“Have they found her remains?”
“No; apparently, police dogs have been taken there, but found nothing…”
Seeing Things Page 20