Martha was growing frustrated. Why couldn’t he just leave it, say goodbye, go back to Edinburgh and just leave her alone? Why was he so intent on quizzing her? It wasn’t any of his business if she stayed or went. “Look, Will,” she said in a gentle voice, “I really don’t know what you want from me. You say you found nothing at the cottage so hanging about here isn’t going to get you a very interesting case for your paper, now is it? Like I said, there’s nothing paranormal as you call it up at Eyrie Farm and I’ll be able to deal with the police from London. It’s very kind of you but, really, there’s no need for you to hang around. I do appreciate you taking an interest though – and the hotel swap was a great idea. You’re a student, though, so what say I pay for the room for last night and we’re all done and dusted here then.”
Martha smiled sweetly and Will mirrored the smile. Result, she thought.
“Really,” he said, “there’s no need for that. I can well afford the room – consider it a gift.” He turned his attention to the crisps on his plate and popped one in his mouth. “You see, Martha, I think there’s every need for you to stick around.” He looked directly in Martha’s face, the smile gone. “You say you had an intruder. But this intruder managed to get in and out through locked doors and appears to have floated soundlessly around your house faster than the speed of light and had the strength to drag a grown woman half out of bed. Not to mention our prime suspect is overseas. It may not be paranormal but it doesn’t sound normal to me.” He returned his attention to the plate. “On top of all that, I think you’re lying. I think this isn’t the first funny thing that’s happened to you at that house and I think you’re getting out of it because you’re scared.”
Martha was speechless for a moment. “You shouldn’t believe local gossip,” she said and began to gather up the toys Ruby had been playing with and put them in her changing-bag.
“I didn’t get that from the locals. I’m getting it from you.”
Martha stopped what she was doing and looked at him.
“Before I studied parapsychology, I did a degree in psychology,” he went on. “However, even a fifteen-year-old with a book on the subject could spot a mile off that you’re lying. Sitting Ruby on your knee to use as a physical shield against me? Hardly fair because she’s only wee.” He leaned over and rubbed Ruby’s cheek, running his hand under her chin across to the other cheek. Ruby scrunched up her face and batted at Will’s hand. “I won’t go into the details – but your body language alone is telling me there’s something fishy going on. Not to mention all the signs you left at that house – what did you call it, Eyrie Farm? – the signs of someone who scarpered at speed. I think you’re really scared, Martha, and I’d like to help.”
Martha began to rearrange the items in the bag furiously. “I’m moving out, remember?” she snapped. “So I don’t need help but it’s clear that you need your paper done and I’m the lemon you’re going to try to build your case around with your ghostly nonsense, is that it? I have a little girl here who needs a snooze and I’ve got a lot to do to get moved – I have to get back to the cottage and pack for starters . . .” She just wanted to get back to the hotel room to hide. She had no intention of going anywhere near the cottage but she was determined to make Will believe she wasn’t scared. Hopefully then he’d take his psychology and leave her alone.
“So you’re heading back to the house?” said Will.
Martha nodded. Surely she could lose him now.
Will glanced under the table. “Did you leave your bags at reception or are they in your car already? I could have helped you carry them, you know.”
Martha looked blankly at him. “What bags?” she asked, as if Will had said something ridiculous. Too late she realised that she had walked herself into having to make another explanation.
“Checkout time was twelve,” said Will. “I assume, if you’re heading home again, that you checked out?”
Martha could have kicked herself. “I’ve actually booked in for tonight as well,” she said, trying to make it look as though it were the most natural thing in the world to do. To have a two-night break in a budget hotel five and a half miles from where she lived.
“Oh really?”
“Really.”
“Because you’re not scared to go back to the cottage,” continued Will, signalling for the bill.
“Not at all,” said Martha, affecting nonchalance.
“So you’re staying another night but you’re going back to the cottage now?” he continued. “In that case, would you mind awfully if I popped back with you? I think I’ve left a notebook behind me.”
“No!” said Martha, too quickly.
Will was regarding her with a supercilious grin.
Dammit, she thought. “Oh, okay, no problem,” she said. “Let’s go then.” He could pick up his damned notebook and then surely he’d go back to Edinburgh. There was no need for him to stay here, was there?
Will waited in reception while Martha picked up some toys for Ruby from her room. She reluctantly admitted to herself that a trip back to the cottage might be a good idea. She could actually pick up some purées for Ruby instead of buying jars. And she could do with some more clothes for both of them.
This time Martha followed Will in her car and pulled in behind him outside the front door of the cottage. She felt detachment when she looked at it – as though with her decision made to return to London she had cut any connection whatsoever with this building. It was sad in one way, considering the haven this had once been but Martha’s overwhelming emotion was relief at never having to sit there anticipating creaky floorboards or strange scratchings ever again.
She opened the front door with her key but, instead of going first, stood back to let Will go before her. Ruby was grizzling with tiredness in her arms, but Martha had no intention of letting her sleep while they were there. She went into the study and laid her down on the sofa, wedging her in with some cushions. Then she went to the kitchen to take some purées from the freezer.
Will went upstairs, to get his notebook, she presumed. She noticed that he must have cleared up the mess on the kitchen floor and all the chairs were neatly in place at the table. She was grateful for that. The kitchen felt almost normal again.
She was busy chipping cubes of frozen mango out of an ice-cube tray when her doorbell rang. It made her jump – she didn’t think that anyone, save for Rob Mountford eventually and Sam, had ever rung her doorbell. “Dammit,” she said. She didn’t want to be there any longer than she had to, but she knew that Will was upstairs and if she left the door unanswered he’d probably think she was a right antisocial cow. Although why should she care what he thought?
She hurriedly popped another frozen cube into a Tupperware container and slid the tray back into the freezer. The bell rang again as Martha scurried down the hall, wondering who on earth it could be. After all, it seemed none of the locals would come near the place and Rob was still away. Sam, maybe? She hoped so . . . she had a few questions for him.
She opened the door to find a big man standing outside. He had thinning reddish hair, gelled into carefully feathered spikes, and wore a peach-coloured silk shirt loose over black linen trousers and Birkenstock sandals. He had his back to her but turned as she opened the door. She spotted at least two rings on each hand and a shiny gold chain around his neck. His features were small, his face slightly pudgy, and he had the beginnings of a reddish beard.
“I’m looking for Will,” he said in a strong Scottish accent with a slightly camp affectation.
Martha was about to ask him for his name when Will came cantering down the stairs behind her.
“Gabriel! You found your way here.”
The huge man stepped into the hallway, brushing past Martha as though she wasn’t there. “Got a taxi,” he said. “Bloody bugger wouldn’t come up the driveway and I had to walk. In this heat – can you imagine?”
“This is Martha,” said Will.
The man called Gabriel looked around him until he saw Martha, as if he were discovering her under his foot. “Charmed,” he said, insincerely, and turned back to Will. “This place is pretty godforsaken, isn’t it?”
The two men made their way down the hall leaving Martha at the open door, wondering what was going on.
“Excuse me,” she said. They ignored her and kept walking. “Excuse me,” she repeated, more loudly this time. Will turned back toward her, beckoning her toward the study. Gabriel carried on into the kitchen, studying the walls and floor.
Martha was irked. What the hell was this guy up to now? She closed the kitchen door, and followed Will into the study. “Can you explain to me what’s going on?” she said loudly.
Will indicated that she should be quiet and closed the study door over behind her. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said in a low voice. “Gabriel’s done some work with me in Edinburgh and I asked him to pop down and take a look around.”
“Why? You said yourself that you didn’t find anything – why do you need a second opinion?”
“It’s not so much a second opinion as a different opinion. Gabriel’s a sensitive.”
Martha snorted. “He doesn’t seem very sensitive to me!”
Will put his finger in front of his lips and made a shushing sound. “He’s a medium. A spirit medium.”
“Someone who pretends to communicate with dead people?” Martha couldn’t believe what she was hearing. What on earth was Will playing at? “How bloody long is this going to take?” she hissed.
“He doesn’t pretend, Martha. At least I don’t think he does. We’ve had a very high hit rate on some other cases we’ve looked at and I wanted to see how he’d do here. He’s actually part of my casework.”
“On a case where there’s nothing there?”
Will looked at her. “Now you know, and I know, that I don’t believe that and neither do you. It won’t take long and, besides which, it would be a shame to disturb Her Majesty over there.” He pointed at the sofa where Ruby had fallen asleep.
“Oh dammit!” said Martha. “I hadn’t intended being here long enough for that to bloody well happen.”
Will sensed a note of panic in her voice. “I won’t leave till you’re ready to go,” he offered. “How about that?”
The two made their way quietly out of the room into the hall. “Why would you stay with me when there’s nothing here?” she snarled, desperate for Will and his psychic friend to just drop it.
“Oh, there’s something bloody here alright,” a voiced boomed behind her.
Martha jumped for the second time in the space of five minutes.
“A whole lot of something, in fact,” said Gabriel. “William – will you accompany me upstairs? I think there’s a whole world of surprise up there.” He swept past Martha and stood at the bottom of the stairs, a worried expression on his face.
Will looked at Martha and then followed him silently. Slowly, the two men began their ascent, leaving Martha watching from the hall, the familiar sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She sat in the study, absentmindedly stroking Ruby’s foot as she slept, listening to the progress of the two men upstairs. The room was bright and comforting in the sunshine and Martha found it difficult to believe that the last time she had been in this room she had been crouched against the door, in abject terror.
She heard Will and Gabriel make their way around the upper floor. They were mostly silent – only occasional muffled words came down through the floorboards. They visited Martha’s room, then the bathroom, stopped for a while on the landing, then the box-room and finally Ruby’s room where what sounded like a heated exchange took place in hushed tones, followed by a very long silence.
The quietness ended abruptly as a heavy pair of feet stamped from the room and down the stairs and then she heard the opening and slamming shut of the front door. She heard the gravel outside crunch and then a car door slam. Ruby stirred and her eyelids flickered but she simply turned her head toward the back of the sofa and returned to sleep. Martha suddenly felt very tired.
A second pair of feet, quieter, came down the stairs and along the hall. Will poked his head around the door. “Sorry about that,” he said quietly. “Gabriel wants to go for a drink – he can be a bit drained after a walkabout like that.”
Martha smiled weakly. “It’s okay. He didn’t wake her up. Does that mean you’re leaving?” She was aware that there was a tinge of desperation and panic to her voice but she didn’t care. Half an hour ago she’d felt fine, couldn’t wait to get rid of Will. Now the arrival of a medium made things a little different. She realised that the prospect of Will leaving her alone was making her very anxious.
“I’ll wait until you’re ready to leave,” said Will kindly, no trace showing of the man who had tried to catch her out when they spoke earlier.
“What about Gabriel?”
“Don’t worry about him. He can wait in the car and cool off a little – he’s, um, a little miffed with me about something.”
“I should be too,” said Martha. “You set me up to be here this afternoon, didn’t you? So that you could meet Gabriel? It’s not a coincidence that he arrived when we were here.”
“I’m sorry. Again,” said Will, looking genuinely remorseful. “I didn’t want to bring him here without you knowing but I knew you’d never agree to meet him so I kind of decided to – well – serve him up, as it were. I phoned him from reception when you went to get Ruby’s things. He’d come down from Edinburgh this morning.”
“It’s alright. I feel too bloody tired to care and if this casework is so important to you then you can bring whoever you like in here so long as it really doesn’t involve me.”
“Come with us to the pub,” suggested Will. “Let me buy you a drink to say sorry.”
Martha shook her head. “No, ta. You and Gabriel carry on there without me.”
“Please,” begged Will. “He’s awfully cross with me actually and I could really do with a bit of moral support. Call it repayment for the hotel room – which I have no intention of letting you pay for, by the way. Just the one. You’d really be giving me a dig-out . . .”
Martha looked at her watch. It was nearly Ruby’s dinnertime. Poor child, she thought. Being fed on the trot again. “Alright,” she said. “I have to feed Ruby anyway. She shouldn’t sleep for too much longer. Tell you what – give me a hand gathering up a few bits and we can go then, alright?”
Will beamed. “Deal! Now what do you want me to do?”
Martha mainly wanted Will to be in the same room as her while she gathered up Ruby’s food into a small portable cooler and packed a bag with more clothes for both of them. She felt fine in the study but nervy at being alone in all the other rooms.
By the time she had finished, the baby had woken and Martha settled her into her car seat while Will locked the house and waited for her to drive onto the road first.
She was very grateful for his consideration. Even though she’d been trying to show him she wasn’t frightened, she was. Very much so. But this time he hadn’t tried to get her to admit anything which made her even more grateful.
The two cars parked side by side at the Abbot’s Rest. The car park was beginning to empty out as the busy Sunday lunch trade dried up. Martha watched as families drifted out to their cars – mums, dads, grandparents, babies, toddlers. All normal people going to their normal homes, able to protect and provide for their children, happily married.
Will helped her take the stroller from the boot and she thought that they must look like another happy family heading to the pub on a Sunday afternoon. Apart, of course, from the really big, cross psychic medium, that is. Gabriel had stormed out of Will’s car and across the car park into the pub. Will saw her watch him go and caught her eye, pretending to quake in terror and then rolling his eyes heavenward. Martha smiled.
Gabriel had secured a table in a dark corner of the pub and when Martha
and Will walked in he was frantically trying to attract the attention of a waitress.
Martha looked around at the setting. “Can we not sit outside? It’s a lovely –”
“No!” bellowed Gabriel, and she sat down on a stool, shocked. “Look at my skin, woman! Do you think I can take that outside in that sun?” He swung his head around, desperately seeking service. “Besides, what I have to say can not be shared with all and sundry in a beer garden.”
“Hang on,” Martha interjected. “If you boys are going to talk about whatever you did at the cottage then I’m going outside to sit by myself. I’m moving out of there – none of it concerns me.” She stood up to leave.
“Sit down!” commanded Gabriel.
She obeyed again out of shock.
“That’s where you’re very wrong, dearie,” said Gabriel. “Very wrong indeed. This concerns you bigtime. You and your bairn.”
Martha looked from Gabriel to Will and back again. Will shrugged as he caught her eye – obviously Gabriel had shared nothing with him on the drive from the cottage.
Gabriel at last caught the eye of a waitress. “I want the biggest glass of sauv-blanc you can come up with,” he said, pronouncing it ‘sov-blonk’. “And whatever these two nellies are having.” He pointed a disdainful finger at Martha and Will and sat back in the armed chair that he had commandeered, rubbing his temples with his beringed hands.
Will ordered a bottle of beer and Martha a mineral water. She would have given anything to join Gabriel in a glass of wine but she knew she had to drive back to Bickford. And possibly as far away from this place as she could.
“Right,” said Gabriel in a low voice. He sat forward and leaned on the table, his bulky frame almost making it topple over. “As you well know, William, I don’t do bairns.” He pointed at Ruby and Martha frowned. “You have never seen me take a case where there was a bairn involved and I am ripping with you that you never told me there was one here.”
The Dead Summer Page 18