Strange Sight

by Syd Moore

  I saw him gulp and straighten himself – he was slipping back behind the Mr Uptight persona.

  The space between us widened.

  I stepped back and looked into him, but everything had changed. We had gone back to how we were two minutes ago, like the hand thing had never happened. Normal service had clearly resumed. Not that I was happy about it.

  Blimmin’ heck. Whoever shouted down for me had better have a good bloody reason.

  I muttered out a stroppy ‘okay’. There was no point lingering.

  Then I slunk upstairs.

  It was Agatha, waiting outside the cellar door. A lot of the staff were refusing to go down into it now. Only the brave fetched cellar stock, and super quickly too. You couldn’t really blame them, could you?

  Behind Agatha. I spied Jarvino and Femi loading dirty dishcloths into a washing machine.

  ‘Yes?’ I said to the bartender, sounding marginally less irritated than I actually was.

  She didn’t seem to notice. ‘I have Mr Henry Warren’s details,’ she said, and handed me a note.

  ‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’ I asked. Now my grumpiness was coming through.

  Her features tied into a little knot that became the centre of her face. ‘You asked me for his number,’ she chided. ‘He’s a regular. Big spender. You must treat him with courtesy and respect.’

  It would be rude to do anything but agree, though I was ready for an argument just for the hell of it. I reminded myself that it wasn’t Agatha’s fault she’d interrupted something that I hadn’t wanted interrupted. At all.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I told her. ‘Though I’m only going to ask him how he knew about the ghost.’

  She seemed satisfied by this and pointed out she’d given me a landline and a mobile. ‘Don’t use the landline now. It is late. And the mobile, I suggest you only text.’

  ‘Message received and understood,’ I said.

  Femi and Jarvino announced they were leaving and Agatha said she’d go with them so we all said our goodbyes, then when I heard the front door slam shut I went and took up position at a table by the hatch.

  It was just as well I had set my kit up earlier for I was still rather distracted. There wasn’t a huge amount to monitor compared to Sam’s Aladdin’s cave downstairs: a camera, which was battery-operated though rechargeable and of the ‘quaint’ variety. As the kitchen was a much bigger space than the cellar I’d had to find a high point for it to sit on so the lens could take in as much of the room as possible. Earlier I’d tried a stepladder, which was too rickety, so had ended up improvising with the cable ties and managed to fix the camera by its handle to an upper shelf. After securing it with at least fifteen of the plastic strips, I had been satisfied with the angle. Now I carried out a technical test to ensure that the equipment hadn’t come loose – I poked it. When it didn’t wobble, I pressed record.

  Next, before I forgot, I texted Henry Warren and explained I had some questions for him regarding La Fleur. I requested, very politely, a convenient time to meet. Didn’t get a reply but like I said it was quite late by then so it he was probably asleep. After that I downloaded an EMF app on to my phone, double-checking that it was fully charged.

  Then I copied Sam and did a ‘control’ reading to work out what the various norms were in there. Walking round the perimeter of the room I listened to the fridges humming and singing in their own mechanical way. Above me pipes gurgled and coughed. I reckoned the plumbing was ancient. It was odd that the place looked so new and glossy out front, when behind the façade, the body of the building itself had to date back centuries. You could tell that from the pipes, which were, to my reckoning early 1920s, maybe even Victorian. They had been painted several times and some of the most recent paintwork was flaking away.

  I gave up inspecting them and went and sat back down at the table and laid down my phone, EMF app on and speaker side to the room. Next to it I had a torch, spare tapes, some pens and a few sets of batteries.

  Sam had allowed me a lamp. I had argued that ghosts wouldn’t care if there were lights on or not. To which he had acceded, or possibly submitted. He intended to ‘set an example’ by going for the ‘complete darkness’ option himself. Though the cellar door was still open and a bit of my lamplight illuminated the upper part of the stairs.

  I didn’t feel uncomfortable. Not really. I’d done stake-outs before. Inner-city London was never deserted or inactive. Up here in the kitchen, I could hear the low sounds of traffic in the distance, the muffled scream of a police siren tearing off to an emergency. Closer by came the irritating drip of a tap somewhere in the building.

  Sam had told me to note anything that seemed out of the ordinary or which seemed very ordinary and to keep a register of the time. I wrote down Midnight – nothing doing. Then I waited.

  My mind drifted back to what had taken place downstairs. It really was a bugger Agatha had called for me then. I wondered what might have happened if she’d been a couple of minutes later. I’d never know. However, I reflected, our interaction had certainly been intriguing. I could still feel a residue of excitement flitting around my body. Sam liked me, I was sure. But his reticence and caution spoke of someone who had considered the possibility of getting involved with his boss (of sorts) and thought better of it. That kind of thinking never got you anywhere, in my mind. Sam’s, however, was of a completely different variety, I was aware. Well, he was right about one thing – this wasn’t the right moment in our relationship to open that particular Pandora’s box. We had things to do, ghosts to debunk.

  Hopefully there would be more opportunities. Certainly if I kept the museum.

  About forty-five minutes later I became aware of a faint rustling noise, down by the cabinets, as if an animal had got in and were exploring the room. I was probably quite wired because it also made me think of a woman in a crinoline skirt brushing against the walls. It had obviously come from Mary’s descriptions, which must have wedged into my mind. I reminded myself it was more likely to be a rat. They had form here, so to speak. I turned on my torch and had a closer look at the skirting boards.

  Nothing doing. Still.

  Just to be on the safe side I cleared my throat loudly so if there was a rodent lurking it now knew there a human was present. Let’s hope that would scare it away.

  Sam called up from the cellar to see if I was okay. Bless him. He cared.

  I told him I was and that I thought I heard an animal noise but that it had stopped.

  I checked the EMF. Nothing.

  I put it on the table next to where I sat.

  I logged the sound in my book.

  I kept vigil.

  Time passed.

  The clock on the wall ticked.

  I became aware of the coming of the next tock and wondered if somehow it was getting louder.

  I thought about the probability of that happening and then my mind returned to Sam. Of course it did. There was a bit of a problem, I thought, with me being the owner of the museum. If we did ever get it together (I shuddered slightly at the joy of the notion), if everything went well, it would be amazing. But if it didn’t, if it went wrong, then it would be disastrous, awkward and we probably wouldn’t be able to continue working together. If indeed that was what we were doing. Sam might even decide to leave the museum. Not only would that scupper the museum, what would he do about his book, his PhD he had spent so long on? He was only halfway through it. Maybe he’d have to pretend everything was okay, just to complete his thesis. Ew – that was a hideous notion. He wouldn’t, would he?

  Appalled, I started to understand Sam’s reticence. Maybe it was better that we stayed like this, for the present. I mean, we didn’t know each other terribly well. We needed to spend more time together, finding out what we were like, not rushing things, but taking it slow. And I thought about a gradual deepening of understanding, a friendship that turned into something hotter and sexier and passionate and sometime during this contemplation I must have dropped off to s
leep. Because moments, minutes, maybe hours later my body jerked up, instantly rigid, conscious and alert.

  Sitting on the edge of my chair, I appeared to be mid-action – lifting my head up from my chest where it had been resting.

  All my senses had jangled to attention.

  Which is why I think I heard it so clearly.

  A hard rat-a-tat-tat against the window of the back door.

  My face snapped to the sound.

  From my position at the table I couldn’t see anything beyond the glass there. No outline or form behind it.

  I took a breath and decided to wait.

  The EMF detector buzzed: interference in the magnetic field close by. The dial on the meter swayed hard to the right. The light on the table went out.

  What the hell was going on?

  I cocked my head into the kitchen.

  The fridges gave a sigh then ceased humming.

  I switched the lamp on and off.

  Nothing.

  Must be a power cut.

  Of course. The light had gone out in the street earlier. Should have realised there was a fault. Probably generated by the workmen above.

  That explained it. Didn’t it?

  I rubbed my eyes and hoped they’d adjust to the thick dimness.

  The room became ominously silent, as if all the sounds had been sucked out of it. You didn’t often get that in London. I was surprised by how unnerved I felt.

  I was about to call out to Sam when the rapping came again. This time much harder against the window. Angry and impatient.

  Oh, blimmin’ hell. What was I meant to do about that?

  It wasn’t on the schedule.

  Should I answer it?

  When I was in the middle of an investigation?

  Was that what you did?

  Or perhaps I should go back to Plan A and call Sam?

  I bit my lip. Summoning up menfolk to solve a situation was something I normally liked to avoid.

  I was a big girl. I could deal with it on my own.

  I moved towards the back door, my footsteps deliberately light, virtually inaudible.

  As I approached, though it was dark out there, the view into the yard became more distinct.

  There was someone lurking. But not close to the door. A little further back.

  However, the late-night mist had clotted into what clichéd cockney TV characters might call a right ‘pea-souper’. Dense and yellowish in colour. It obscured everything but the wavering outline of the person in the yard.

  There was nothing else for it – I would simply have to pluck up courage and open the door. Maybe it was just a member of staff who’d forgotten their bag or keys. There was nothing spooky about someone knocking on a door was there? Tsk.

  I heard Sam shout up from the cellar, ‘Rosie, are you getting that?’ I assumed he meant the door and yelled back into the house, ‘Yes, no problem.’ To my dismay, I saw the cellar door swing back on its hinges and slam shut. How rude, I thought. Typical of Sam, leaving me to deal with the ‘interruption’ so that he could continue his investigation unharassed.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I muttered. ‘You just leave it to me.’ Then I stepped into the yard.

  Bloody hell, it was freezing.

  The dank smell of burning coke, lightly sulphuric, dusty and smoky, hung in the air. Could people be burning fires now? At this hour? I supposed we were in the heart of a hyperactive city that, like New York, never slept any more. Some people might still be up and stoking fires.

  All the lights out back had gone out, but the round moon was trying to break through the fog. I could make out within it a strange twist. Something thin and dark was moving stutteringly, almost like a stop-motion cartoon. Humanoid in shape, it dipped and flickered like it was made up of a swarm of a thousand winged creatures.

  That couldn’t be right, I thought. I must have something in my eyes so rubbed them. I’d not long been awake, after all. The cold smog pushed against me. Moisture clung to my skin. I blinked and opened my lids even wider.

  But no, it was still there.

  Actually it wasn’t an ‘it’. It was a ‘she’. At least I thought it was a she, for long dark and matted hair hung down over the shoulders, or where the shoulders should have been if I could see her properly. It was peculiar though. I was trying to get a fix on her but my vision was fragmenting as soon as it touched her form, sliding off as if she were somehow visually slippery.

  I crept a few steps into the yard. ‘Hello?’

  A shape in the mess turned to me. I saw the semblance of a human face, dirty and smudged. Petite pinched features, eyes woefully sad, large open sores about her mouth. But around that, the perimeter of her face was less clear, merging with the shadows cast from her hair. Despite the fact it felt like I was viewing the girl through a smudged window, I knew that this wasn’t one of the La Fleur staff. Her build didn’t match and, also, I didn’t think any of them got around in hessian sacks. Unless that was some new Hoxton trend. This girl certainly didn’t look like a confident follower of fashion. She looked upset and disorientated. Though I noticed she sported a thick black choker, crafted from metal, about her neck as some kind of statement jewellery – a grungy industrial-goth fusion. Actually, I thought, she seemed really young. Not more than thirteen. Maybe a runaway? Terribly thin.

  And she looked distraught.

  I experienced a sudden sense of despair. Where had that come from? Was I feeling her pain? Perhaps I was detecting a nuance?

  ‘Are you okay?’ I stretched my hand towards her, only to realise I was still holding the torch. ‘Are you lost? Have you forgotten something?’

  Part of me thought she might recoil if I got closer. But she didn’t.

  About five feet away, she turned her fuzzy flitting face to the east and the adjoining yard.

  ‘Vere,’ I heard her say. ‘Vover vere.’

  As the words left the black hole of her mouth, I heard them as a vibration in my ears, a tickle, like an insect had flown into them and was beating its wings.

  I put my hand to one and covered it. But the words wormed their way into my head and created meaning in themselves, echoing around until I heard them as ‘over there over there over there …’

  I tried to shake them out and then, slightly dizzy, directed my gaze to where she was pointing.

  ‘Over here?’ I’d need to humour her till I’d worked out what to do, so began to walking very obediently and very slowly to a gap in the wall that separated La Fleur’s yard from next door’s. A dozen bricks had tumbled down months back and not been built up since. They formed a small hump of debris that blocked access either way.

  ‘Vere,’ she mumbled. There was something wrong with her tongue. Despite the lack of volume her voice was urgent. Forgetting my new boots, I clambered up on to the rubble and flicked on my torch.

  There was nothing but the neighbour’s yard and his place next door. Tall and thin, maybe four storeys high, it had clearly been built at the same time as La Fleur. Except its basement was slightly higher than La Fleur’s. There was one barred glass window just above the ground. A flight of stone stairs led down from the main door. Everything was dark.

  ‘There’s no one there,’ I said, and turned back to the girl.

  A cloud crossed the moon. Only her face remained, oddly luminous yet a rusty red. Her shadowy eyes blinked then. A thick mucus-like liquid started to seep out of the right one.

  Oh god, poor girl. She was injured. Perhaps she had taken a knock to the head.

  I watched helplessly as another trickle cascaded from her left eye this time.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked. ‘You look like you’re bleeding. Your face …’

  The two purple rivulets were turning into bloody streams that dribbled on to the ground in a viscous puddle and then … and then … dissolved. Before my eyes.

  It must be some trick of the light.

  I looked up to where her face had been.

  It was empty of anything. No shape,
no form, no weird luminescence, no ruddy darkness.

  I began to stalk forwards to the patch of ground where the puddle slopped so briefly, searching beyond the yard for the girl but, as I did, something smashed behind me.

  It had come from the neighbour’s yard.

  A prickle of fear ran down my spine.

  I could either go forwards and see where the girl had vanished to or go back and examine the source of the noise.

  What to do, what to do?

  Maybe the girl had slipped past me, though God knows how, and broken something in the yard?

  Could that be possible?

  I wasn’t honestly sure if she could be so lightning fast but I made a decision and spun round returning to the pile of rubble, shining my torch about the back of the building.

  There was glass on the ground near the basement window.

  Oh crap. Burglars, I thought, and another thrill of panic fired through my abdomen. Though even with my torch I couldn’t see anyone else there.

  ‘Please,’ a thin weedy voice drifted up from the broken window.

  It was slight, like a like gasp or a sigh.

  Had the girl got into the house?

  I directed my torch over.

  The bluey-white circle of light shone through the bars and I saw, astonishingly, the pale features of a woman’s emaciated face.

  Another one.

  Different to the girl in the yard.

  This one was only slightly more rounded. Her eyes were deep black and bruised. Dirty fingers, showing torn and broken nails, gripped on to the iron bars across the window. Beyond them I could see where boarding, jagged strips of wood, had been prised apart.

  This was totally weird.

  I’m seeing things, I thought, and for a moment I was completely overawed by a kaleidoscope of emotions and options. Should I go back and call for Sam? Should I go and look for the other girl? Should I scream? Call out? Run? Take a deep breath? Panic?

  I stood there, with my torch, and did nothing until the scraggy blackened hand reached out from the bars. ‘Help me, please?’