The Ghost Hunters

by Neil Spring

  ‘I hope there’s not been any trouble?’ I asked.

  ‘Trouble?’ His breath frosted on the air. ‘That’s putting it mildly.’

  I tried to catch his eye, but he was glancing furtively to either side of me, then behind me, almost as though he was afraid that at any moment someone might leap out at us from the dark.

  As it transpired, that was exactly what he was afraid of.

  ‘You’d best be moving on now,’ he added. ‘It’s not safe out.’

  ‘Not safe?’

  ‘Not for women like you – perhaps not for any of us.’ He looked up. ‘You must have read about the attacks?’

  I hadn’t. I explained to the officer that I had been so busy at work that week I hadn’t had time to read the newspapers. The way he was shaking his head now, looking away from me and pursing his chapped lips, led me to the conclusion that something was very wrong. I didn’t care at all for the look on his face. I had seen that look before, in the pale faces of the Foysters at Borley Rectory.

  ‘Are you guarding this house?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Not guarding, miss. Waiting.’

  He cast a quick glance behind him.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said with quiet diplomacy. ‘There’s no one around.’

  His sharp eyes locked on me. ‘Sure about that, are you, miss? I’ve seen him,’ he said suddenly. ‘Once this week already – Monday. Came charging out of the dark, he did.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Whatever he – it – is. Dark and fast – such a terrible size. I didn’t see its face. It was no human, I know that. There was a sighting late last night, on this street. A young lady living at this house answered the door to a figure – said he was covered in a dark cloak. A man like a giant bat. Stood right where I am now, just staring at her with blazing red eyes and shooting blue and white sparks from his mouth.’

  ‘Was she all right?’ I asked. ‘No one hurt, I hope?’

  ‘Before the poor lady could cry for help, the attacker had clutched for her dress with steel claws. Then he ran off.’

  Steel claws? I checked my watch. Amy would be wondering where I was. I returned my gaze to the sociable policeman and was about to bid him goodbye when something – it sounded like a dustbin lid – somewhere behind us clattered to the ground. Nothing remarkable about that, I told myself. It was a cat, probably, or an urban fox. But the policeman’s pupils had become wide circles. ‘Tell me more,’ I said. ‘Tell me everything.’

  His name was Officer Westron, and as he recounted his own peculiar encounter, I found myself wanting to produce a notepad and pen and take down every last detail. I felt as if I was back at Price’s side, questioning anxious witnesses like Reverend Smith and the Foysters whose lives had brushed with the unknown. And though a piece of me wanted to walk away – to find Amy at Leicester Square and enjoy an evening on the town – I couldn’t resist asking yet more questions.

  ‘It was a tall figure, and thin. Moved too fast for me to see – leapt out at me from the alleyway. Jumped right over that wall.’

  I took a sharp intake of breath as I remembered something Price had said, years ago, about a ghost that could leap over fifteen-foot walls – a man with steel claws who shot fire from his eyes. The Terror of London. One hundred years ago, sightings of the ghost were common.

  ‘Spring-Heeled Jack,’ I said under my breath.

  By the expression on his face, Officer Westron must have thought I was speaking another language.

  ‘Reports of The Terror appear across history,’ I explained. Sometimes he is said to be gigantic in size. In London he came to prominence in the winter of 1890 when The Times ran a series of articles about unexplained assaults on women by a demonic figure, much like the one you say happened here last night. And now … it’s happening again. Maybe.’

  ‘But how do you know about this?’ His tone wasn’t suspicious, more fascinated.

  I hesitated, unsure how to answer.

  ‘You might be able to help us,’ he continued.

  ‘No.’ My answer came out without thinking. ‘No, I have to go. I’m meeting a friend.’

  ‘Wait, please.’ Westron reached out an arm. ‘Come down to the station with me.’

  Help the police? On a matter of psychical investigation? The idea shimmered, beckoning. This predicament was both crazy and comfortingly familiar. During my Laboratory days Price and I were frequently called upon to give evidence against fraudulent mediums prosecuted under the Witchcraft Act. But that was my other life, behind me now. So why did I suddenly feel so confident, so curious?

  ‘It won’t take long,’ Officer Westron insisted.

  Against my better wisdom – perhaps out of a sense of duty – I nodded and stepped forward.

  *

  ‘How do you intend to take control of this situation?’

  Detective Mayfield was silent. Since my arrival at Charing Cross Police Station, I had heard very few answers. Only questions, which Officer Westron and his superior evidently thought I might help answer.

  I tried again.

  ‘Any physical evidence?’

  ‘We found a gentleman’s cane in the alley. That was all.’

  ‘Do you have any suspects?’

  ‘Who could possibly match the profile? I mean –’ Mayfield threw up his fat hands in exasperation – ‘how can any man appear out of nowhere, outrun six officers, leap fifteen feet into the air, and just … disappear?’

  ‘A man can’t,’ I said directly, ‘but the human mind is very capable of imagining that he can. Tell me, did your officers actually see this figure leap into the air?’ I rose from my chair and turned to face the mild-mannered officer Westron, who was installed behind a much smaller desk, scribbling on a notepad. The vulnerability in the young man’s expression was so pronounced, so incongruous with his otherwise sturdy, robust appearance, that I couldn’t help wondering if he was in the wrong profession. ‘Officer, were your eyes on him when he leapt?’

  He blinked.

  ‘I didn’t think so.’

  The detective looked puzzled. ‘But they chased him into an alleyway and found he was gone.’ He shook his head. ‘The only way out was over the wall.’

  ‘The only way out as far as you know,’ I corrected him. ‘How many reports have there been now?’

  ‘Seven. And many more in the newspapers.’

  ‘Then witnesses may be unreliable, prone to seeing what they have heard from others,’ I said, and before the words were out of my mouth I was remembering the hysterical crowds that had surrounded Borley Rectory when Wall had published his article on the haunting. They’d become drunk on their imaginings. The same thing could be happening in this case. The power of suggestion could make people believe anything.

  Another question occurred to me.

  ‘Do any of the eyewitness testimonies match?’

  Detective Mayfield, whose tie was loosened and whose shirt was more grey than white, heaved his broad frame out of his chair, chewing his lip as he pondered the question. He was around fifty, pale-skinned with a midnight shadow looming on his jowly face. ‘The details are scant. No one got a good look at the assailant’s face. The attacks happened at night, so …’

  ‘So it is easy for the witnesses to exaggerate their reports,’ I said vigorously. ‘What they don’t remember, their mind fills in for them.’

  ‘You think they’re lying, Miss Grey?’

  I met the detective’s gaze and saw that it was laced with envy. Whatever did he think of this fiery young woman who was telling him how to do his job? In truth, I didn’t care. They were the ones asking for my help. And my qualifications were, well, unique.

  ‘Not lying. But possibly mistaken.’

  Catching an unpleasant scent of sweat and beer, I went to the detective’s cluttered desk and leaned over the map on which he had marked the locations of the attacks.

  ‘The way I see it, you have two possible scenarios. Either there is a ghost, or you’re dealing w
ith someone who is impersonating the legend of Spring-Heeled Jack – someone who wants to fool people there is a ghost at large. Mass hysteria and fear of the unknown do the rest.’

  The detective glanced at the younger officer who had brought me in. ‘You’re right, Officer Westron. She seems to know her stuff.’

  ‘And she is still here,’ I said forcefully.

  ‘You’re a sceptic, Miss Grey?’

  I blinked. Memories flashed across my mind: Mother at home, scrubbing damp from the walls; the wretched outline of a dark figure, encroaching ever nearer.

  ‘I’ve met ghosts. They don’t behave like this. They certainly don’t drop their cloaks or pull women’s dresses with steel claws.’

  I turned and went over to Westron, who was already feeding a sheet of paper into his typewriter, presumably to write up his handwritten notes. ‘Here’s what I recommend you do: put an article in the newspapers, laying out the evidence. Shoot down the myths that have built up around this character, Spring-Heeled Jack. Because I can guarantee you, it’s not a ghost stalking London, it’s fear. When people are scared, they’ll believe anything.’

  I turned to face the detective. ‘Take the fear away. Expose the facts, shine light upon the problem, and watch it dissolve.’

  ‘You think that will work?’ Mayfield asked. The frown etched into his weighty face suggested he didn’t.

  ‘I guarantee it.’

  As if a switch had been flicked, the detective nodded and instructed Officer Westron to telephone ‘that expert in South Kensington. What’s his name?’

  ‘Harry Price?’ Westron ventured.

  ‘No!’ I heard myself say, and both men snapped their heads round in my direction, clearly surprised.

  I took a deep breath and lowered my voice. ‘Let me do it. I’ll write the article.’

  *

  ‘So it seems this city is blessed with two psychic experts, Miss Grey.’

  Three months had passed. In his office on Fleet Street Bernard Jenkins, the editor of The Times, was smiling as he leaned back in his chair, admiring the pages of that day’s edition. ‘We had an excellent response to your piece on Spring-Heeled Jack. The letters pages have been humming with speculation ever since.’

  ‘Splendid. I’m glad.’

  In truth I was annoyed with myself for letting down my friend. I had telephoned Amy and apologised but every time I had asked to see her she had said she was busy. Half of me felt guilty but I was satisfied too. Reports of ‘The Terror’ had fallen since I had forgone an evening with her to help the police. And my boss at Jupiter Film Locos was impressed with my article’s reception. Indeed, when he learned that I had worked for a ghost hunter, he even joked that I might assist with the scripts on future horror films.

  ‘Perhaps you’d consider writing more for us?’

  ‘No, thank you. When it comes to psychical research, I suppose you might say I’ve retired.’

  Yet even as I said this, I wasn’t sure I believed it.

  Looking back, it seems ridiculous that I should have seriously considered agreeing to the editor’s request after the lengths to which I had travelled to distance myself from the subject. Yet the idea was oddly appealing, and not just because it was flattering to be asked or because I sensed I was making myself useful. No, the temptation to agree was far more visceral than that.

  ‘Won’t you reconsider, Miss Grey? You’ll be handsomely paid. Surely there are some unusual affairs you might investigate, and write about for us?’

  I remembered, then, the way Price had reacted when Wall’s articles had threatened his own popular status, the way his jealousy had erupted. If I did this, I knew it would anger him intently. And of course I was still bitter.

  ‘I’m sure I can find some. If I do this,’ I replied.

  ‘Wonderful,’ said Jenkins. He was smiling, I think because he sensed my latent desire to say yes. ‘Mr Price … he’s not the easiest man to deal with.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Someone warned me about him a while back,’ he said, choosing his words carefully. ‘An old colleague. Said he’s had his fingers burnt with Price, that he can’t be trusted.’

  Naturally I asked him who had said this.

  ‘Vernon Wall. He’s a journalist. Do you know him?’

  ‘I used to know him.’ Then I thought, I wish I still did.

  Did it strike me as unusual that the journalist who had expressed such interest in me at Borley had never tried to contact me since – no telephone call, not even a letter? I can honestly say that it didn’t. Since our time together at the Rectory, I’d had leisure to reflect. I saw now what had probably been true all along: that I had treated Wall poorly by siding with Price. It was Wall’s story first, even if he had been responsible for drawing crowds of visitors who upset the Smiths’ lives.

  Jenkins shrugged. ‘Trust or not, Harry Price pays his bills.’

  ‘Bills?’

  He nodded. ‘Just this week he placed an advert with us calling for assistants to help with an investigation of a haunted house somewhere in Essex.’

  ‘An advert … What investigation?’ I leaned forward. ‘What house?’

  *

  ‘I won’t pretend your letter didn’t surprise me, Miss Grey.’

  The old man I had tracked down at his college rooms in Oxford spoke with such a rasping voice I assumed he must be a keen smoker. He wasn’t. Indeed, something far worse was at work upon him.

  ‘How many years is it now since we corresponded?’ he asked me on the staircase at the entrance to his set of rooms.

  ‘Ten,’ I said, with a note of apology in my voice.

  ‘And not a word from you since then.’ He gave a reflective sigh and then, perhaps seeing a wider problem not yet evident to me, he nodded and his expression grew serious. ‘I assume you are here because of Borley?’

  I told him I was.

  ‘Then you’d better follow me.’

  He led me along an oak-panelled corridor into his rooms which, for such a wealthy college, were colder and less welcoming than I would have expected. The threadbare carpet and the lingering odour of damp were impssible to ignore. Impossible, also, not to see the troubling thoughts brewing behind my host’s eyes as he invited me to sit with him at a large oval table.

  ‘Dr Chipp, I know you went back to the Rectory all those years ago, after you were at university with Harry Bull. I know you had an … experience. The story of how your dogs vanished from your car while you slept is the talk of Sudbury town even now. The villagers are still frightened.’

  His mouth had tightened. ‘That was a long time ago. Why have you come to see me?’

  ‘Because I need to speak to somebody who understands about that place,’ I answered.

  I told him then some – but not all – of what had happened since he had written to Price at the end of the last decade with details of the Borley problem. Wanting his help and at the same time fearful of what he might tell me, I felt as if I was about to receive the results of a dreaded medical test. ‘I realise I might be overreacting … but I feel there is danger around me. As though something is drawing me to the Rectory even now.’

  I reached down to my handbag, which I had left at my feet, opened it and took out the cutting given to me by the editor of The Times:

  HAUNTED HOUSE

  Responsible persons of leisure and intelligence, intrepid, critical, and unbiased, are invited to join rota of observers in year’s night-and-day investigation of alleged haunted house in Home Counties. Printed instructions supplied. Scientific training or ability to operate simple instruments an advantage. House situated in lonely hamlet, so own car is essential. Write to Box H.989, The Times, EC4.

  Dr Chipp was silent, his expression hovering somewhere between sadness and fear. Finally he said, ‘You think it’s the same house?’

  ‘I know it’s the same house.’ The editor at The Times had given me the details. What I didn’t know was why Price was suddenly involved with th
e case again, after he had so readily dismissed it.

  ‘Your companion is making a grave mistake,’ said Dr Chipp. His statement was devoid of doubt.

  ‘He’s not my companion,’ I said. ‘Not any more.’

  But this detail seemed irrelevant to Dr Chipp. As he sat in silence, I had the impression that this was a man who had lived for too long with a burden – something, perhaps, that he wanted to share with others, but didn’t feel able to express. ‘That place is thoroughly evil,’ he said eventually. ‘The Rectory stains you, pollutes lives.’

  I hesitated, feeling the apprehension his words evoked.

  ‘You’ve been there, I assume?’

  I nodded. ‘Oh yes, a couple of times.’

  ‘Then you will already have experienced troubled thoughts, no doubt. Strange phenomena, nightmares?’

  If Dr Chipp harboured any doubts, they didn’t show. His voice was adamant.

  The terrifying thing, of course, was that he was right. My dreams had worsened and were always the same: the figure of a woman in robes advancing on me. And now, suddenly, whenever I looked in a mirror I glimpsed something below my neckline. I had begun avoiding mirrors for fear of what I might see.

  Of course it didn’t help that Mother’s mental lapses were worsening. She still rose early to collect and open the post, but began to forget she had done so, forgetting also to lock the front door. Her mental condition wasn’t the sole cause of the distance that was opening between us. That was due to a bigger mystery: the partition wall that divided our bedrooms and, from within, the faint but insistent tapping, scratching sounds. Like everything else we didn’t understand, we had learned not to speak of those sounds, to do our best to ignore them even if they refused to ignore us.

  ‘I’ve come because I believe something is wrong, something is happening to me. And because something needs to be done.’

  ‘Then you have felt it too?’

  He wanted me to level with him, I realised. Folie à deux: a madness shared by two.

  The old man leaned forward. His face in the low light was sallow.

  ‘Some years after visiting the Rectory I came here to the college, but within weeks I heard a restless rapping coming from the walls. I never located the source. Soon I started seeing things – quick movements out of the corner of my eye. Oh, I tried to ignore them, but when my scout informed me, in a state of some distress, of what she had seen one morning while cleaning my office – well, I knew then that something had followed me from Borley.’