“Stop!” he shouted suddenly.
Allowing himself to speak, to hear himself say the word seemed to settle him somehow. And for a half second, the movement did stop. It was enough time for something to click in Will’s brain. He had no idea what was happening, had no idea how to stop it. Will’s hand immediately dropped to the pocket of his trousers and he fumbled around for his mobile, tearing his eyes away for a second from the unseen mayhem that was growing closer by the second around him, his fingers skimming the keypad until he found the torch app. He needed desperately to see what was going on. It was pure instinct, however, that made his finger rapidly jab at the next icon on the screen. His camera setting. In a second he held the device upright and jabbed it with his finger. The room was suddenly and brilliantly lit by the flash. And then again, and again. Will swivelled the camera around the room, taking photo after photo, the flash constantly illuminating segments of the room, leaving a white residue on his eyes, blinding him to everything except the apparatus in his hand.
And as he took the pictures, the noises grew quieter and the movement receded, as if the bright light of the flash was somehow fighting back, sending these inhuman shapes and sounds back into the corners of the room from where they had come.
In a matter of moments, Will stopped, lowering the phone from his face, and peering into the silence, squinting against the flash image which burned into his eyes which was also gradually dissipating. Eventually he could see as clearly around him as the darkness would allow, could see that all was still.
Suddenly the door burst open with a crash and Gabriel all but fell in, as if he had been pushing with all his might.
“What the fuck’s going on?” he demanded, breathless.
Will could barely think about him being there. His mind was racing at a mile a minute and he stood there, frozen, tense.
“Are you all right?” barked Gabriel, still standing in the doorway, gripping the handle.
Will felt his heartbeat begin to slow a little as the silence gained a grip once again on the room. He realised he could move his feet again and took a step that enabled him to reach over to the bedside table and turn on the lamp there which immediately flooded that side of the bed with a warm light. Inspired by this, Will looked at the wall above and spotted there a black switch which he flicked upwards, turning on, with repeated flickering, the welcome fluorescent glow of the bathroom strip light.
He sank down on the side of the bed and took in the panorama of the now-lit room, watched by Gabriel who still stood frozen at the door.
It was all quiet. All still and most importantly, bright. There was no intrusive or unwelcome movement, no mysterious voices. All the furniture stood where it should. The room was clear. Will felt his heart gradually return to a more normal pace. What had just happened, he wondered. Had he imagined it? Had he had some sort of out-of-body experience? A seizure? He inhaled deeply and shook his head to clear it. Slowly, he felt the pounding in his heart recede and his breath to return to normal. It was as if he had been literally stunned.
It took a while before he thought to look at the phone. The photographs. He lifted the device, activating the touch screen to call up his photo album, eager for some proof of what he had just experienced. He found himself disappointed when, as he flicked the screen back, shot after shot revealed a room that was fuzzy but empty. The flash had illuminated the fireplace, the armoire, the bed, the door – all of these things, time and time again, blurry with the movement of the camera but just as they should be otherwise. Gabriel, still silent and worried, stepped closer, approached the bed where Will stood. Will felt a tension from him, the same as his own. He looked up, directly at him, saw his white face, his tired eyes. Still, Will couldn’t speak.
He looked back at the phone. What he had just experienced wasn’t normal, he reasoned. He was sure it wasn’t a figment of his imagination – there had most certainly been something – or things – in the room with him. Maybe, just maybe, he might have captured something on his phone, some light anomaly perhaps? Will flicked through the images faster and faster, knowing that it was unlikely that he had captured anything. Until he reached the one of the bathroom door, the last one that he had fired off, he calculated. For a moment he was completely transfixed by what looked back at him from the screen. Because there, blurred and somewhat indistinct, but unmistakeable, was the form of a man. Broad shoulders, a torso, legs visible to the knee. And his face was clear – two eyes, a nose, and a mouth fixed in an expression of rage. The right arm was raised high above the shape of the head, the hand clenched in a fist. Will inhaled deeply as he try to take in what he was seeing. It was a man, a furious man standing before him. Staring at the face Will couldn’t deny the creeping feeling that he was in the presence of pure evil.
“Look . . .” he managed, and thrust the phone at Gabriel, feeling the tense electricity between them. There was so much to take in – he felt fully charged, overcharged even.
Gabriel took the phone and gasped as he saw – and recognised – the shape in front of him. He met Will’s eyes and nodded. It was all he could manage. So much information, so much significance.
“That’s not all,” Gabriel managed, pointing back out the open door.
Both of the men were managing to speak but neither could fully take in what they were saying and hearing. Sound, for them, was like it is before a faint comes on. Distant, yet something desperately sought for, a return to something, something to cling on to.
Will’s head spun but he tried his hardest to focus on his friend with his wide-eyed stare.
“It’s not all, Will – he’s not all. Pine’s come.” Gabriel glanced at the wall that separated his room and Will’s, distantly wishing that his body could somehow stop juddering and start feeling like his own again. “Pine,” he said again, for emphasis. “I woke up when I heard a noise in my room. A scratching noise, like someone writing. I was coming in to tell you when I heard all the noise from your room – he left me another message while I was asleep. On a notepad in my room. Pine’s here. As well as Laurence according to Gifford. And now this guy . . .” He handed the phone back to Will.
Will lowered his head again to look at what he had captured on screen, his whole body on fire. “He wanted me to see this, didn’t he?” he said breathlessly. “I mean, it’s not impossible to catch paranormal stuff on ordinary cameras – it happens all the time – but this? Something this clear? And just when I wanted it to happen most?”
Gabriel nodded in agreement as Will looked up directly at him.
“They’re all on set now,” Gabriel said. “And something’s going to happen. Something more. Because they’re all here. All of them, Jack Ball included.”
CHAPTER 30
Gabriel and Will sat in silence in the kitchen – the new, gleaming kitchen with its strip lighting and modern equipment – having removed all traces of their investigation from the old one. A part of Will kicked himself – why hadn’t he persevered? Why hadn’t he carried on with the investigation when there was so much energy in the house? How could he have thought it was gone dead when so much had happened? Why was he hiding out in the kitchen with a cup of tea and Gabriel for protection? Because he was scared, that’s why. He’d never been this scared before – unnerved, uncertain, but never truly scared. Then again he hadn’t had an experience like that before. He had to admit that alone, in that room with the darting shapes and hideous whispering he had never felt so close to evil in his entire life. He pulled again at his sleeve and looked in disbelief at what he had found there. Four scratches, like claws, embedded in his arm. He hadn’t felt it happen but it was identical to what they had seen on Gifford’s arm.
Gabriel’s forehead was ridged with concentration. Glancing at him, Will guessed that his fear was somewhat less – after all, he hadn’t seen anything he wasn’t already familiar with – but he was completely confused and overwhelmed. They both jumped at the sound of a door being unlocked and opened somewhere in a passage near
by and watched as the kitchen door swung open and an elderly woman Will hadn’t seen before appeared. She, in turn, gave a start at seeing them but then recognised Gabriel.
“Good morning, Gabriel,” she said. “Welcome to Dubhglas.”
“Morning, Mrs Hibbert,” he managed.
She nodded at him, taking off her coat and bustling through to the door to the adjoining original kitchen of the castle, before coming back in and heading for the kettle.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here yesterday to greet you when you arrived but I had some appointments that I couldn’t miss,” she said in a soft voice. “Can I make you gentlemen a cup of tea?”
Will raised his empty cup as Gabriel politely refused and they excused themselves, aware that the normal day at Dubhglas was about to begin and they still had to tidy up the miles of cable and equipment that they had set up so carefully the previous night. It felt like a million years ago, thought Will as they emerged from the kitchen. He checked his watch. It was six thirty. Later than he’d intended making a start, but they still probably had a bit of time before the normal household routine kicked in, and before Christopher Calvert returned.
Gabriel had been insistent that his godfather shouldn’t see what they had been doing. “He doesn’t believe in ghosts,” he’d explained. “He told me once I had fey ways and I replied by asking wasn’t she in King Kong and earned a clip around the ear for my troubles!”
They had laughed as they worked but there was no laughter now as they made their way up the back stairs that led to the main hallway. It was still dark outside of course. Will felt anxious as they surfaced through the door under the turn in the stairs and into the main hallway to be greeted by pitch blackness. He was relieved when Gabriel found a switch and they were suddenly bathed in a dim light. Their spirits lifted a little more as they worked, focusing on winding up the cable, packing away the laptops, ensuring that each camera was removed from where it had spent the night, leaving no marks on wood or paintwork. It took over an hour to get everything done but Will was satisfied by the job. Everything was packed away as it should be, he was certain. And he knew where everything was when he needed it. When he began the task of searching through the footage for evidence.
Normally this would fill him with excitement. He’d fidget anxiously, longing to settle down in a room, alone, with a coffee and his equipment, searching, searching for evidence of the paranormal. As a dark, damp dawn crept slowly over Dubhglas, however, he could think of nothing that he wanted to do less. When he thought about it, he was unsure which he dreaded most – finding something on the tapes that would remind him of the terror of the night before, or shutting the door behind him again in that bedroom.
It was his fear of the room that led him to seek out the housekeeper again to obtain the keys to the golf buggy that Callum had used the day before to ferry the equipment to the castle, and undertake the return journey in the bleak morning, soaked through in a sodden fog. He didn’t care, however. His equipment was valuable to him and he didn’t want to store it in that room. Not if what Gifford had said was true about the destructive nature of this so-called spirit. He didn’t want anyone – or anything – tampering with the evidence.
He saw Gifford when he made his final journey back from the car park. He was standing beside Gabriel on the mezzanine overlooking the front door as Will re-entered. He was pleased to see that Gabriel was studying the place where they had seen the shadow seem to step from the wall and watch them.
“We need to analyse all the evidence, of course,” Will heard him say as he climbed the stairs. He hoped that Gabriel was being discreet about what they had both experienced. They needed something more concrete before they went and terrified an already frightened man.
“Oh hello, Mr Peterson – you should have let me take your equipment back to the car.” Gifford held out his hand to Will apologetically.
Will shook it briefly and then handed the keys of the golf buggy to the butler. “Not at all, Mr Gifford,” he said. “But, can you tell me again about the mists you see here? Where exactly do you see them?”
Gifford pointed a finger at the first bedroom door, exactly where they had seen the figure the previous night.
“Here, as I told you,” said Gifford. “Directly outside this door here.”
Will and Gabriel glanced at each other.
“Would you like some breakfast?” asked Gifford, suddenly. “I’m afraid I’m not looking after you gentlemen very well!”
Will made to refuse politely but then thought better of it. Gabriel took the words from his mouth. “I’m absolutely famished, Gifford,” he said. “But I think we might need just a little fresh air first – what do you think, Will?”
Will nodded. He’d had some already as he drove the golf cart back and forth. He didn’t fancy another soaking in the pervasive Highland mist of the morning, but knew by Gabriel’s tone that he wished to speak to him in private.
“We’ll take a turn down to the loch, I think,” said Gabriel. “And then do you think Mrs Hibbert might do some of her scrambled eggs for us?”
Gifford relaxed. This was familiar territory for him. Not spectres and mists and strange noises. “Would that be with smoked salmon or something more substantial?” he asked eagerly.
“Oh, I think a full Scottish on the side might be in order?” smiled Gabriel and Gifford relaxed even more, eager to get to work. To do something normal. “A walk to the lake will add to my appetite just that bit more.”
It certainly added to Gifford’s delight. He took off with an efficient, silent step down the passage while Gabriel took Will’s arm and led him down the stairs.
To Will, the weather had improved slightly as they walked around the house to the back lawns, passed through what had once been a copse of trees, now white-painted stumps, and onto the grass which was saturated. The morning mist hung there, gloomy, soaking everything in all-encompassing greyness.
Gabriel tutted loudly as he glanced down at his shoes and saw that they were sodden in a couple of steps. He pulled his coat tighter around him and looked up, closing his eyes against the mizzle and sniffing loudly. “What a dreich,” he commented emphatically.
They walked on down the lawn in silence for a few moments, each man lost in his own thoughts.
Will dug his hands into his pockets and turned fully to look behind him at the building, to take it all in. He studied it silently, peering at every window, at each turret, as if he didn’t wish to miss anything that he might see. Satisfied that there was nothing to be noticed – this time – he turned back and took in what was now before him.
Dark grey, barely visible amongst all the other greys of the morning, on the far side of a thick copse of trees at the bottom of the sloping, carefully tended lawns, the lake was just visible.
He was distracted suddenly by Gabriel breaking into a gentle jog and looked at him in surprise as he aimed a perfect kick at a tall mushroom that he had spied slightly to his left.
“Gooooal!” mouthed Gabriel quietly and joylessly as he watched it break and scatter over the grass. The action hadn’t been as satisfying as he thought it might be.
“A lot happened last night,” offered Will. “I think we might have seen Jack Ball’s ghost, what do you reckon?”
He was surprised to hear Gabriel’s response. “Wasn’t the one I wanted to see,” he replied bluntly.
“What do you mean? What else did you want to see . . . oh . . .” Will stopped as he realised that of all the phantoms that they had encountered the night before, none of them was the one that Gabriel had wanted to witness. None of them had been Laurence. “I’m sorry, mate. Does that upset you?”
Gabriel paused for a moment and took a calming breath. “I’m just so confused. So hurt that he’s manifested to Gifford who is a complete stranger to him. And it distresses me to think that he’s presenting in this form – as he looked when he died. The wet clothes, the missing shoe – that’s exactly how those paper cuttings described it. I�
�ve never seen him like that.” Gabriel moved on slowly. “That’s how he must be when he’s here, I suppose. I never thought that he actually be anywhere other than with me but maybe this is where he is when he’s not . . .”
Will glanced sideways at his friend, unsure what to say, and they carried on in silence, finding soon that they had reached the trees at the bottom of the lawn. Gabriel fell in behind Will as they negotiated the narrow path in single file.
“I may as well hang up my hat,” said Gabriel eventually.
Will turned his head, but only enough to hear him more clearly. He was afraid that he would go head over heels on the network of damp tree roots and slippy leaves and moss that lined the floor of the thicket. “Why’s that?” he called behind him, concentrating hard.
But Gabriel didn’t answer. They were silent as they crossed the last few dangerous feet of ground and then emerged from the shadow of the trees onto a small beach against which Dubhglas Lake lapped serenely.
Will halted and stared. The water itself was the same grey as the sky. He gazed out over to the horizon, barely visible. The mist was thick on the other side of the lake but he imagined it would mirror exactly the side on which they stood. Now, there was nothing there, just the dark, grey void of fog and water, and the eerie silence that surrounded them, broken only by the lapping of the water on the black shore and the occasional sound of a bird, even though Will could see nothing on the gentle slate-coloured waves that bobbed into the distance.
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