The Dark Water

by Helen Moorhouse

  Relieved to find that the hallway before her was empty, she glanced back toward the couch and saw that Angeline and Gabriel were doing the same – taking deep breaths and savouring the festive smell. Must be one of Gabriel’s neighbours, thought Martha, bringing home their tree early. Maybe Gabriel’s building put one in the hall for the residents? It was quite posh after all . . .

  She let go of the door handle, extended her fingers, realising just how tightly she had gripped the handle. She returned to her seat on the sofa. As she moved, so did Will, carrying an EMF meter and his camera and looking at both with interest. He passed her without acknowledgement, and she glanced after him as he walked to the doorway, lights flashing on the small piece of equipment.

  The silence returned to the room again, as the candles grew still.

  “Welcome,” said Angeline slowly, and sat forward on the couch, bringing Gabriel with her by tugging his hand. She stretched her left hand across the table toward Martha and Gabriel opened one eye, saw what she was doing, and did the same with his right.

  Martha realised that the hand-holding time had come and squirmed uncomfortably forward on her seat. This is supposedly where they combined their energies to make the spirit stronger, she thought. Please don’t let there be a spirit, she thought, even though she knew there was. She could feel it. She gripped Gabriel’s warm hand with her left hand and loosely took Angeline’s cold one with her right.

  “Now if we can all concentrate and focus,” said Angeline softly, “we can help this poor man to tell us what’s troubling him.”

  Martha shivered involuntarily. “Shouldn’t we do some sort of . . . I dunno . . . protection spell or something?” she said timidly, her voice trailing off as Angeline’s eyes shot open and the tiny woman fixed her with an angry stare.

  “I am not a circus conjurer,” she snapped abruptly, rolling the ‘r’s’ as she spoke. “We are here to help someone who has passed on. The dead cannot hurt you, Martha, only the living.”

  Angeline closed her eyes again. Martha felt confused. The last time she had done this – with Gabriel – he had given her some protection and she knew from experience that the dead could do harm. Martha glanced at Gabriel for support but his eyes remained closed.

  Suddenly, Angeline’s head tilted to one side. Martha felt her energy drain from her and she grew hot as she realised that something was about to happen.

  The air suddenly felt alive with electricity. Will swung the EMF monitor in the direction of the trio at the centre of the room and the candles guttered again. Martha heard a click that she recognised as a small recorder being switched on and she felt Will move behind her to lean over the coffee table and place it there.

  There was no way of explaining it but it really felt as if there was another person in the room.

  “Mhmmm,” nodded Angeline suddenly, looking as if she were in conversation with someone sitting beside her. “Can you tell me a little more about what you want us to know? I need some more.”

  Martha felt Gabriel’s hand grip hers tighter as he too opened his eyes and looked at the tiny woman having her one-sided conversation. Martha tried to ignore a feeling of panic that rose in her. She was used to Gabriel being the strong one, knew that he should protect her – manage the situation like he had done before. Now it seemed, as she saw him grow alarmed, he was as vulnerable as she was. And that didn’t give Martha any confidence at all.

  She inhaled deeply as Angeline nodded again, took a deep breath and turned her attention to the table. “I have a man here who is a little anxious. He says his message is only for you, Gabriel, and he’s been trying to reach you for a long, long time. He needs you to then pass the message on to others.”

  Gabriel gave a slight nervous cough. “Is this the man who has been following me around,” he said, his voice cracking slightly as he said the words.

  Angeline leaned over again and cocked her ear to her unseen conversation partner. She nodded. “He’s been trying to get your attention, Gabriel,” she confirmed.

  Gabriel snorted. “Well, he’s bloody well done that!” He glared at the unseen visitor. “Who are you?” he demanded suddenly, making Martha flinch at the volume of his voice in the quiet. “Why aren’t you talking to me directly? What’s with all the sneaking around?”

  Angeline squeezed his hand. “Now you should calm down too, Gabriel. Our friend here says that he’s new to all this and he’s been doing his best because it’s very important. He’s been trying to get hold of you for a very long time – even from before he passed.”

  Gabriel sighed. Martha could see that he was frustrated. He was clearly not getting the information he wanted from whoever – whatever – was conversing with Angeline. Martha supposed that for someone like Gabriel, being unable to conduct his own communication must be like losing a vital sense – hearing, perhaps, or even taste. Suddenly, she found herself feeling sorry for him. Before she had always felt that it must be such a curse to talk to the dead.

  “Does he know where Laurence is?” asked Gabriel softly.

  Silence fell again, as Angeline turned her ear to listen for a few moments. Finally she shook her head. “He says that he only knew him when they were both living.”

  A look of confused dismay crossed Gabriel’s face.

  Angeline cleared her throat suddenly. “I have a name, Gabriel,” she offered, concentrating deeply. “He says that you might know him. And that he didn’t do it.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Back at Calderwood, Gabriel practically snatched the whisky that Martha had poured for him from her hand, knocked it back in one go and handed the glass back immediately for a refill. Martha’s eyes widened and she unscrewed the bottle.

  “Thanks for letting me stay,” said Gabriel, taking a more sedate sip from the second glass and rolling it around his mouth to savour the taste. He closed his eyes, more in relief than in pleasure. “Oh that’s fine,” replied Martha, finally tasting her own drink and grimacing slightly at the strength. She normally never touched spirits – of any sort, she thought to herself – but tonight was an exception on all fronts. She wasn’t as shaken by the events in Gabriel’s apartment as she thought she might be, but she was slightly spooked. She was glad that the baby-sitter had kept a fire burning in the living room and she had turned on all the lights in the house. It was already serving to make her – and, oddly, Gabriel it seemed – feel better.

  Gabriel swirled the whisky in the crystal glass. “Ridiculous as it sounds, I’m really not sure I could have stayed in my flat by myself tonight after all that,” he said and stared into the fire, almost regretfully.

  Martha curled a leg underneath her as she sat down on the couch beside him. “I hope you’ll be okay in the front room upstairs – it’s full of Will’s crap, but then again, so are all the others. I’ve made the futon up for you. You know it ain’t the Ritz . . .” Martha shrugged. She knew she was babbling but wasn’t sure what else to say.

  Gabriel had been visibly disturbed by Angeline’s revelation, by being made aware of the identity of his ghostly stalker. The name had been vaguely familiar to Martha but she wasn’t sure where she had heard it before. She wondered why Gabriel was so upset by it, but didn’t want to ask for fear of upsetting him more. She had never seen him so unnerved.

  “Will should be back shortly,” she said, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, more to break the silence in the room with chit-chat than anything.

  Will had opted to drive Angeline home, presumably to quiz her on the night’s events, and Martha had been delighted to let him. She didn’t want to spend a second longer with the strange woman than she had to.

  Martha shuddered and took another sip from her glass, trying desperately to think of something to say to break the silence.

  Gabriel sighed suddenly and Martha glanced at him.

  “That was all . . . pretty . . . intense?” she volunteered.

  Gabriel nodded his head in agreement. “It surely was,” he said, exhaling deeply aga
in. “I was not expecting that outcome, I can tell you.” He shook his head, as if in disbelief.

  “I mean, to find out you were right,” said Martha. “About being haunted, that is . . .”

  “Least of my worries now,” observed Gabriel. “It’s who’s doing the haunting that’s blown my mind.” He directed his thoughts inward, and fell silent for a while. Then he suddenly turned to Martha. “And as for you, dark horse . . .” he said, taking a swig from his glass.

  Martha looked at him, mystified. “What on earth do you mean?” she said, eyes wide.

  “Well, you never told me before that you had any sort of a sixth sense for these things,” said Gabriel, indignant.

  “What sort of sixth sense?” asked Martha, genuinely bemused.

  “Well, my sort of sixth sense!” barked Gabriel “I mean, what did you see in the corner when you looked up? You looked like you definitely saw something there! Have you been holding out on me?”

  Martha herself was growing annoyed. “I just felt a bit funny, that’s all. I didn’t see anything.” She wished he’d change the subject. She knew that what she had felt in that room was more than just discomfort but that wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have with him now. To do so would mean acknowledging something that she didn’t want to talk about, didn’t want to face.

  Gabriel rolled his eyes and persisted. “But you must have! Angeline whispered to me before we started that that’s where his spirit is drawn.”

  “That’s where whose spirit . . .” Her voice trailed off as she finally acknowledged what Gabriel was saying to her. “You mean your ghost.”

  Gabriel nodded at her, eyes wide as if she had just figured out something so basic that it was inconceivable that she wouldn’t have known all along. They stared at each other like this for a while until Martha looked away and reached down for her glass. She couldn’t hide from him the fact that she felt uncomfortably drawn to the spot every time she entered the room.

  And then there had been the face in the blind . . . She shrugged away what Gabriel was trying to say to her.

  “Hope Will’s okay on the road,” she said to change the subject.

  The night had turned icy after the unseasonable warmth of the day. She had been surprised to find frost forming on the windscreen of her car and the sky bright with distant twinkling stars when they had finally emerged from the apartment, although the bracing fresh air had been such a relief. Angeline’s identification of the so-called visitor had brought proceedings to an abrupt end. The room had suddenly gone flat and Angeline had shook her head, saying that the man was gone – didn’t seem to have any energy left, much to Gabriel’s disappointment.

  Gabriel gave Martha a lingering look but didn’t pursue their conversation any further. He swigged back the last of his drink and waved his glass at her to get him another refill.

  Martha simply stuck out her tongue. “Get it yourself,” she said haughtily and he grinned weakly before accepting defeat and levering himself from the couch to walk to the cabinet where the whisky bottle sat. Martha felt braver on seeing him smile and the mood lightened somewhat. “So,” she said, “do you think that tonight helped, creepy and all as it was?”

  Gabriel shook his head again but more in disbelief than denial. “Hard to say,” he replied. “On one hand it solved one mystery – yes, I am being haunted – yes, someone has been trying to get in touch with me. On the other, though, it’s just made things a million times worse – I’ve got more questions now than I have answers – great big bloody questions. I think I know now why Laurence has backed off, for example, but I’ve no idea how to get him back and no idea if somehow there’s a connection between this ghost following me and my being asked to go to Dubhglas. I’m totally stumped in fact.”

  Gabriel rejoined Martha on the couch as she looked at him, waiting for him to elaborate on what he had just said. Gabriel continued to look into the fire, deep in thought. They sat like that for a while until he finally noticed her looking at him.

  “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” he said.

  Martha shook her head, aware suddenly that she was missing out on some vital information that was apparently common knowledge.

  Gabriel sat forward in his seat and looked at her again, a half smile playing on his face. “You’re really clueless, aren’t you?” he said.

  Again, Martha nodded.

  “You don’t know who the ghost is? Who Martin Pine is?”

  “No, Gabriel, I don’t know who Martin Pine is,” she said impatiently. “Obviously tonight’s events have meant a lot more to you than to me so if you want to explain, then feel free. If not, I’m just going to go to bed. With the lights on. All of the lights on and –”

  She was interrupted by the sound of the key in the front door and Will entering quickly, stamping his feet against the cold and shutting the door gently behind him. He was with them in the room in a second, removing his coat as he strode in and throwing it on an armchair. Martha watched him as he looked expectantly at Gabriel, giving neither of them a greeting.

  “Gabriel, I need your permission,” he said, suddenly.

  Gabriel turned a lazy eye to the figure standing over the couch. Martha felt the cold of the evening coming from Will and shivered slightly.

  “Well, hello to you too, Will,” he said sarcastically.

  Martha could see his eyes beginning to glaze a little. He had eaten nothing all day while they had cleaned and now the whisky was taking its toll. Will strode around the couch and threw himself down in the armchair near Gabriel’s seat.

  Will’s face bore a serious expression. “Okay, sorry. But don’t you see, Gabriel, this could really be important? If we find out that Angeline’s got it right, maybe it could reopen the case files or something, get him acquitted – imagine the publicity it’ll generate? Another innocent man banged up for years and imagine if his case was reopened because of paranormal evidence? Imagine!”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Martha, interrupting Will’s stream of words which made absolutely no sense to her.

  He ignored her. “We can do this step by step, get Angeline in touch with Pine again and then see if we can prove what he tells us? Video our sessions with an independent observer . . .”

  Martha’s eyes flicked to Gabriel who was shaking his head.

  “Easy, William,” he was saying. “We don’t know if Pine’s telling the truth – it goes against everything that was accepted in a court of law. And, besides which, he’s already served a sentence . . . if he’s innocent, then why didn’t anyone raise an objection before now?”

  Will was sitting forward in his chair with excitement. “Gabriel, there are hundreds of people out there who have been victims of miscarriages of justice. Just let me look further into this?”

  “Please, will someone tell me what’s going on?” Martha cried. “Gabriel – you were about to explain to me who Martin Pine was?”

  “You don’t know who Martin Pine is?” Will said in disbelief.

  “No,” growled Martha.

  Gabriel looked over his shoulder at Will and sighed. “We clearly can’t finish this conversation unless Lady Mushroom in the dark over there has everything explained to her,” he slurred disparagingly. “Will you tell her, Will, or will I?”

  Will responded by sitting even further forward in his chair and fixing his eyes on Martha, a trace of an excited smile playing on his lips. “This could be huge,” he said. “Really important on so many levels. Martin Pine was convicted of murder. But if this is true, what he told Angeline, that he was innocent . . . if this is true then Martin Pine is innocent of killing a child.”

  Martha’s attention suddenly returned to Gabriel as the penny dropped and she remembered where she had heard the name before. “Laurence,” she said to him.

  Gabriel nodded and drained his glass.

  Martha looked back at Will. “Martin Pine is the man who killed Gabriel’s brother, isn’t he?”

  Will nodde
d and sat back in his seat.

  “And went to prison for it?”

  Will smiled. “The very one,” he said.

  “That’s what I meant when I said it explains where Laurence is gone,” added Gabriel. “Pine murdered him, and now he’s managed to scare him off in the afterlife as well. But why? And why is it all kicking off now?”

  Will remained silent for a moment before going to the knapsack he had carried in with him and taking out his notepad. “I’ve got a theory,” he said simply, thrusting the pad at Gabriel.

  Martha couldn’t help but recoil in horror as she recognised it, the scrawled, so-called spirit writing still shocking to her eye.

  “I picked this up on my way out, for a closer look,” said Will as Gabriel hesitantly accepted the pad. “Look at it – both of you – and see if you can see what I think I can.”

  Gabriel stared at the message for a moment before handing it to Martha. “Just tell me what you think,” he said.

  Martha reluctantly accepted the notebook and forced herself to look closely at it.

  “The words,” urged Will. “The ones we can make out say ‘do it’. But just because they’re the only ones we can make out doesn’t mean they’re the only ones there.”

  Martha looked up from the pad and shook her head. She handed it back to Will gladly.

  “Look . . . there are all sorts of loops and squiggles on here,” said Will, tracing his fingers around some of the markings on the page. “But you’ve seen spirit writing before, Gabriel, haven’t you?”

  The medium shrugged in the affirmative, still glassy-eyed and only half-listening.

  “Sometimes the shapes that spirits make on a page don’t necessarily relate to what they’re trying to say, however – you’ve told me that before – that spirits find it difficult to summon up the energy to do this properly.”

  “True,” replied Gabriel, becoming slightly more absorbed in what Will had to say.