‘At least you married rich,’ Max said cheerfully and Katie kicked him under the table.
Michelle smiled thinly. ‘That’s what everyone says but I had to sign a pre-nuptial agreement. I didn’t come away loaded, whatever anyone says. In fact, it would be helpful if you could put that in the piece. I mean, half my family are after money I don’t even have.’
‘You weren’t left penniless, surely.’
‘Not entirely,’ Michelle said. ‘But that’s why I kept the name. I was damn well going to have something of value. Not that it’s done me much good.’
‘So, the first night,’ Katie prompted.
‘Right.’ Michelle looked suddenly nervous. ‘I don’t want to make me sound like a loony. I was really young and the house was creepy and old and I think I just got spooked.’
‘Fair enough,’ Katie said, containing her impatience as best she could. ‘What did you see?’
‘I didn’t see anything. I heard voices, though, and music playing.’
‘Could it have been other people in the house?’ Max said.
‘Thomas’s father was passed out in his study in the other wing of the house. Everybody else was away. The staff had gone home.’
‘They didn’t live in?’
‘He couldn’t keep live in staff. Nobody stayed very long so he gave up trying and just hired day staff.’
Katie shot a look at Max.
Rosie toddled over, clutching a plastic bowl with a wooden tomato and a yellow plastic blob that could have been scrambled eggs. She plonked it in front of Michelle and said, triumphantly, ‘Eat!’
‘Ooh, thank you,’ Michelle said in the exaggerated sing-song voice people used with small children. ‘Yummy, tomato and eggs.’
Rosie’s face clouded over. ‘No. It’s soup.’
‘Silly me,’ Michelle said, taking the plastic spoon and pretending to eat some. ‘Mmm. Lovely soup.’
‘Silly, Mummy,’ Rosie said and marched off to her corner.
Michelle watched her go with a soppy expression. ‘She’s my little angel. My miracle.’ Michelle leaned in and lowered her voice. ‘I was forty-three when I had her. Can you believe it? I’d almost given up hope.’
‘Wow,’ Katie said. She couldn’t imagine wanting a mini dictator in her life any more than she could imagine being forty-three.
‘IVF. Four rounds. It was hell.’
Katie nodded politely and then took a sip of her tea so that she wouldn’t have to say anything.
Max was looking intently at the menu.
‘But so, so worth it. You don’t really know love until you become a mother.’
‘So you heard voices.’
‘And music. It was creepy but I kind of got used to it. I avoided the back stairs — they were always cold — and I used earplugs at night.’
‘You were brave,’ Katie said.
Michelle gave her a tight smile. ‘I was distracted. Being married to Thomas was scarier than anything else. I didn’t really have time to worry about it. I told myself it was an old house, settling sounds. Radiators. I really wasn’t scared. Not after the first night. That’s why it was such a surprise.’
‘What was?’ Max was looking at Michelle.
‘Thomas going that way. I mean, he’d been acting strangely for ages, but I put it down to eccentricity. He also was a bit odd.’
‘Why did you marry him?’ Katie couldn’t stop herself from asking.
Michelle gave her a pitying look. ‘When Thomas Beaufort asks you to marry him you say yes.’ She hesitated. ‘Don’t write that down. Write that I was young and in love.’
‘What?’ Katie said just as Max said, ‘No problem.’
Katie could see Rosie approaching, her tongue stuck out in concentration as she carried two plastic bowls, piled high with plastic fruit. ‘Why did the family move out of the house?’
Michelle closed her eyes. ‘Thomas was convinced it was haunted.’
‘Was it?’
Michelle opened her eyes. ‘Of course not. Ghosts don’t exist.’
‘But Thomas believed in them?’
‘He was very spiritual anyway, believed in all kinds of crackpot theories. His great-grandfather or someone had been interested in all that stuff, too. He had a really freaky collection of books and weird objects. Like, there was this horrible shrunken head from Peru and Neolithic axe heads. I told him that stuff should’ve been in a museum, but between you and me I think it should’ve been sent to landfill. I didn’t like it being in the house but by then I’d realised that my opinion meant exactly nothing.’
Rosie placed a bowl of fruit in front of Max. ‘Banana surprise!’
‘Thank you, madam,’ Max said, his voice completely serious, and Rosie giggled delightedly.
She put the other bowl down a little shakily and a plastic orange skittered across the table. ‘Is that for me, darling?’ Michelle said, reaching for it.
‘No!’ Rosie pushed the bowl to Katie. ‘Eat.’
‘So Thomas was predisposed to believing odd things, but what made him desert the estate? I mean, it had to be something big—’
‘Pinocchio died.’
‘Dog?’ Max said, before Katie could ask.
Michelle nodded. ‘Thomas thought it was an evil spirit. Said he wasn’t waiting around for the same thing to happen to him.’
‘Did he say who the spirit was?’
Michelle looked thoughtful. ‘He thought it was his great-grandfather at first, but later he decided it was an archaeologist. A friend of the family back in the thirties. Kept going on about digging up the corpse and burning it, if you can believe that. I used it in the divorce. Unreasonable behaviour.’
Katie tried to look sympathetic, even while her mind was jumping with excitement. Violet had died in 1937. It couldn’t be a coincidence. ‘Did he actually do it? Burn the body?’
‘Ew. Don’t be disgusting.’
‘Are you sure?’
Michelle gave her a look that was borderline frightened. She glanced over to where Rosie was playing, then began to get up. ‘I think I might’ve changed my mind.’
‘Please,’ Katie said. ‘I know it’s a weird question—’
‘His great-grandfather had been cremated,’ Michelle said. ‘It was in his will. He was very specific about it. Why do you want to know? What kind of article are you writing, anyway?’
‘Actually, I’m not—’ Katie began, but Max cut across her.
‘Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.’ He held out his hand and Michelle shook it quickly. She picked up her handbag and, with one last alarmed look, grabbed her daughter’s hand and left.
‘Well, that was interesting,’ Max said after the café door closed behind Michelle. ‘I’m starting to think you’re onto something with this ghost business.’
‘Thank you,’ Katie said, surprised. ‘Have you decided I’m not a weirdo, after all?’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Max said. Outside he took Katie’s hand and held it as they walked back to the car. ‘But I’ve got a high tolerance for weirdos.’
‘Is that supposed to be nice?’
‘I’m being romantic,’ Max said. ‘Shush. Let me tell you about my dad. He thinks the number four is evil. Like, properly, evil. He thinks it’s out to get him.’
Katie laughed. ‘You can’t outweird me with family stories. Trust me, I’ll win.’
‘Is that a challenge?’ Max said, and all the way back to Pendleford they swapped stories. He matched every Harper-family fact with one of his own. Like the fact that his father’s best friend had an imaginary dog, who he insisted on giving a bowl of water to at poker games. Katie dropped Max back at The Grange and watched him walk away.
Chapter 17
Katie looked around the hotel for Henry. She checked the living room where she’d first seen him and all of the unoccupied bedrooms. He wasn’t in the kitchen, although Jo was experimenting with a new sweet fruit tart for the next day’s menu and Katie snagged a freebie
for her elevenses.
Katie had given up her search and decided to find a sunny spot on the lawn and rest until her shift started when she saw a figure by the ornamental pond. As she got nearer she saw it was Henry. He was standing motionless and staring out over the water.
‘Hello,’ Katie said. ‘Am I disturbing you?’
Henry turned and although Katie had prepared herself for his image to do that shimmery-shuddery thing, it didn’t seem as bad. Maybe it was the sunlight, but Henry definitely seemed more solid than last time she’d seen him. ‘Not at all,’ Henry said. ‘I’m delighted to meet you again.’
Katie tamped down on the lift that gave her. The man was just being polite. Plus, he was dead.
‘I didn’t realise you could come out here.’ Katie indicated the gardens.
‘I’ve tested my boundaries and I can get halfway down the driveway to the front and just beyond the ha-ha at the back.’
‘Why do they call them ha-has?’ Katie said. ‘It’s always seemed rude. As if the landscaper is laughing at you for being fooled.’
Henry frowned at her. After a moment, he said, ‘You have a singular mind.’
‘Thank you.’
Henry looked briefly annoyed. Then he smiled thinly. ‘I’ve been thinking about you since we last spoke and I have questions. May I ask them?’
‘Fire away.’ Katie sat down on the stone bench overlooking the pond.
‘Have you met many like me?’
‘A few. Lots can’t talk, though. They’re very thin. They just seem to repeat something. It’s like they’re not really here but I’m looking through a special glass and seeing into somewhere else.’
Henry nodded. ‘And the ones who can talk. What are they like?’
Katie thought about Violet. ‘Variable.’
Henry turned away from the pond and moved a little closer to Katie. She felt a wave of cold air, as if an enormous cloud had gone across the blazing sun.
‘Have you met any others? Ghosts?’
‘No.’ Henry looked irritated. ‘I told you, I can’t leave this place.’
‘But, there are others here. Lots, probably. I mean, this place is old.’
Henry was very still. ‘There are other lost souls here?’
‘You’ve never seen another ghost?’ Katie realised how little she knew about her new reality. ‘Aren’t you guys all connected on, like, a spiritual plane or something?’
‘I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m not.’ Henry looked miserable. ‘I told you, I haven’t conversed with anyone for a very long time.’
‘Perhaps you’re all on different planes.’
‘In soap bubbles, floating around you.’ Henry smiled. ‘You’re at our centre, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t think I’m important. I’m just the lucky girl who can see ghosts.’
‘There must be a reason. I can feel the power coming from you.’ Henry took a deep breath. ‘Can’t you see how I get stronger when you’re near?’
It was true: he did seem more solid again. ‘You think I’m doing that?’
‘I think you’ve no idea what you can do.’
‘My aunt, Gwen, she finds lost things and she’s really good at making remedies, giving advice, that kind of thing. The women in my family often have special skills. I think there was even someone who could talk to the dead, kind of, but nothing like this, nothing like...’
‘Nothing like you.’ Henry smiled. ‘Why does that not surprise me?’
‘I just wish I knew why. I mean, the gifts in our family are usually useful in some way. I tried to speak to a ghost, to help him, and I couldn’t. He looks miserable and I can’t help. What’s the point of that?’
‘I wonder why you can talk to some spirits and not others.’ Henry tilted his head back as if to appraise Katie more fully. ‘Perhaps you’re not really trying.’
‘I did try,’ Katie said. ‘He just didn’t hear me.’
‘Perhaps you need a physical connection. This ghost you say you tried to help, did you touch him?’
Katie shook her head. ‘Something told me not to.’
‘Your selfishness, perhaps.’
‘Hey.’
Henry lowered his eyes. ‘You felt frightened, yes? The little voice that lives in the back of our minds and tells us when to run, when to hide, it spoke to you, yes? And you listened because that was easier than helping this poor unfortunate.’
‘That’s not true,’ Katie said and wished she couldn’t feel the tugging in her left ear lobe. She had been frightened. She was frightened, now.
‘I think you need to reach into him,’ Henry reached his own hands out and Katie took an instinctive step backwards.
‘What do you mean ‘into’?’
‘I’m working on a theory,’ Henry said. ‘I think you need to connect, to join your physical forms.’
‘I don’t want to,’ Katie said. Apart from anything else, it was starting to sound dodgily sexual.
Henry shrugged. ‘It all depends how much you want to help him.’
Katie felt sick. She didn’t want to touch the ghost, didn’t want to be anywhere near him when he produced that horrible sharp blade and began cutting.
Chapter 18
Katie needed to get away. She needed a break from the hotel, from Violet and from Max. He wasn’t entirely wrong when he said she didn’t want to get too close. She didn’t like feeling attracted to him. It made her feel weak and vulnerable. As if she could do something stupid at any moment. It was all very well for Anna to say she should ‘live a little’, but she didn’t know how seriously wrong that could go. Trust the wrong person and you could wind up dead. That was Katie’s reality and all the fridge-magnet homilies in the world couldn’t change it.
The streets were busy and Katie dodged window shoppers and dawdling couples. The bridge was choked with tourists. Some were leaning over the parapet and gawping at the water as if they’d never seen a river before. Katie blamed the weather. The sun was low in the sky, casting a yellow-toned glow onto the scenery, and the air was warm and still. It made the place feel Mediterranean and holiday-ish.
As she stepped around a couple of girls who had stopped in the middle of the pavement to snap pictures with their mobiles Katie felt a rush of cold air. Before she had time to process the familiar feeling, a man who was too translucent to be alive reared up in front of her. ‘Have you seen it?’ His voice was a quiet rasp and Katie took an instinctive step backwards.
Katie opened her mouth to reply and, remembering that she was surrounded by people, closed it again. She shook her head as discreetly as possible, lowered her eyes and moved on.
Katie’s flat was on the middle floor of a town house. One of the Victorian ones on Elm Road, and something the people of Pendleford had an irritating habit of referring to as the ‘new houses’. Just because Pendleford had houses and streets from medieval times and had originally been a Roman settlement, didn’t mean they had to shout about it. And it certainly didn’t mean they should get away with referring to Victorian as ‘new’.
The streets were quieter once she was off the main road, but the whispering voices she’d started to hear seemed to get louder in response. It was like having a receiver in her mind, constantly flicking between radio stations with varying receptions. Maddening.
When Shari had lived in the flat, Katie had developed a habit of walking into the living room with her eyes aimed on the carpet. That way, if Shari and her boyfriend were engaged in naked sofa gymnastics, they had time to disentangle or, at least, pull a throw over themselves.
At first, Katie had loved being able to walk anywhere in the flat, her gaze held high and without fear of seeing a stray boob or random penis, but today it didn’t seem like such a terrible price to pay for company. She unlocked the front door and walked into the quiet hallway, ignoring the wisp of a ghost that she could sense around knee height. She didn’t look down. The child ghosts were the worst. They looked so forlorn, so empty. Yesterday, she’d seen a boy
of about eighteen months crawling along the aisle of the local supermarket. He’d been dressed in layers of woollen clothes, which made him look like a bulky sort of caterpillar, and he’d been crying so hard that there were trails of snot and tears hanging from his face to the floor. She’d had to leave her basket of shopping on the floor and still couldn’t think about his unhappy face without crying, herself.
In the bathroom, she clicked on the light, illuminating the cracked white tiles above the sink and the black mould that was advancing across the ceiling. The room was freezing, as always, and the creaky extractor fan wheezed into life. Katie contemplated the black mould that had colonised the sealant about the sink and had turned the tile grouting a speckled grey. It was comforting to think about normal things like bleaching the walls and how she needed to phone her landlord about the dodgy noises coming from the boiler.
Katie squeezed toothpaste onto her brush and ran the cold tap, turning it all the way on just to get a measly trickle of water. That was the only thing with the characterful old properties in Pendleford: they were high maintenance and she wasn’t exactly the housekeeping type.
The overhead light flickered and the extractor fan stopped working. She began brushing her teeth, closing her eyes against the light in case it started a migraine.
When she opened them, leaning forward to spit, she caught sight of a figure. An old man with a heavily lined face and big pouched bags under his eyes. She yelled, a fountain of toothpaste foam and saliva pouring down her chin. The light flashed off and then on again in a split second and there was nobody there.
Katie looked around the bathroom, shaking so badly her teeth were cracking together. The room was colder still, the hairs on her arms standing upright. This was another problem with the old houses in Pendleford. Lots of ghosts.
*
The Secrets of Ghosts Page 19