by Peppi Hilton
“I want to leave here. Now!” she demanded. She hadn’t given any thought to her car being parked at the front of the house.
Charlene could see that there was no point in arguing, so she turned her car round and reluctantly headed for the exit. At that precise moment Mr Midgley arrived in a black Range Rover.
“Thank god for that!” Charlene muttered under her breath as she reversed back in again, hoping that his arrival would help to calm Kelly down.
Mr Midgley parked up and climbed out. He was a burly middle-aged man with a ruddy complexion and receding fair hair, and he was wearing a green hunting jacket, with corduroy pants tucked into stout leather boots. He glanced across to the open door looking somewhat bemused, before proceeding to walk over to Charlene and Kelly as they waited in the car.
“Good morning, I’m George Midgely. Was the door open when you arrived?” he enquired. He extended his arm to greet them both, but his countenance was full of concern.
Charlene reached over and shook his hand as she began to explain, but Kelly interrupted impatiently and blurted out the whole story.
Midgley listened, but he wasn’t convinced at Kelly’s version of events.
“Where are you parked?” he asked her, as he surveyed the car park.
“I’m parked at the front.”
“And how did you get in there?”
“I drove through the gates.”
“Well, that particular entrance hasn’t been used for many years and it certainly isn’t in use now. The gates are permanently closed. I don’t know how you managed to open them.”
He continued firing questions before Kelly could answer.
“Who opened that door?” nodding his head towards the house.
“I did …”
“And it was unlocked?” he questioned. before Kelly could finish what she was saying.
“There was a key inside the lock.” Her manner was becoming tetchy.
“Was the key on the outside?” he questioned abruptly.
“It was inside,” Kelly answered sharply, feeling as if she were under interrogation.
“Well it certainly looks as if someone has managed to break in - could be squatters I suppose. But I’ve no idea how anyone could have got hold of a key. I’ll go take a look.”
He walked over to his car and withdrew an air rifle from the boot, before proceeding towards the house. And then as if reading the minds of the two women, he waved the gun in the air and called back, “Used for hunting - that’s all!” He strode purposely towards the open door and then disappeared inside.
Kelly felt that he was ill-matched to confront a vicious killer, especially with the make-believe threat of a gun which he was unlikely to use. Shooting game was not exactly the same as facing an armed and crazed psychopath.
Charlene didn’t know what to think. She was beginning to wonder if Kelly had really seen something, and whether she should have taken her story seriously in the first place.
As they both continued to stare at the open door Charlene became fidgety.
“Do you think we should go in there and make sure he’s okay?”
“I’m not going back in there!” cried Kelly.
And so they waited in anticipation, seconds feeling like hours, until the suspense got the better of Charlene.
“What if there really is a killer in there? Mr Midgley could be in danger!”
“What do you mean, what if? And as we haven’t seen him come out he must still be in there. And I know what I saw.”
It was already clear to Kelly that neither of them had believed a word of what she’d relayed to them earlier. But she remained undeterred – her resolve was firm, she would not go back into that house of horrors.
They were both glued to their seats, and for a few minutes not a word passed between them.
This time, Kelly was the first to break the silence. “What if the killer’s escaped into the woods through the front entrance? Whilst Mr Midgley’s in there - the killer could be watching us out here.”
Charlene had built up so much nervous tension that she could hardly speak.
“What if he’s a serial killer?” continued Kelly. “I hadn’t thought of that before. My untimely arrival may have uncovered one murder, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the only one. What if he’s hidden other bodies in the forest? He could have been coming here for years undisturbed for all we know. After all, no-one would ever know would they?”
Kelly’s irrational thinking scared the pants off Charlene, and she was jolted out of her silence.
“But surely Mr Midgley comes up here regularly to check on the property? Wouldn’t he know if something was going on?” She was sounding feverish.
“If the killer had sufficient knowledge of this place and its isolation - which he obviously did, he would know he was safe up here. He must have abducted that girl and brought her here…” she stopped for a moment as her mind flashed back to her journey through the woods. “Oh my God, I’ve just realised … I saw her - on my way up here. She must have escaped. She was trying to warn me - but the weather was so bad … she disappeared before I could think straight.” Kelly was babbling breathlessly.
Charlene didn’t need any more prompting she suddenly decided she wasn’t going to sit around any longer. She jumped out of the car and bolted towards the open door.
“Hey, where are you going?” screamed Kelly, half-hanging out of the window.
“He may need assistance,” Charlene yelled back, as she ran inside the house.
It didn’t take long for the fear of being left alone to spur Kelly into action too. Chancing her luck, she sprinted after Charlene regardless of her shoeless feet.
Once inside the house she moved forward cautiously, and listened intently for any sound which would lead her to the whereabouts of Mr Midgley and Charlene. She held her breath – for even that sounded too loud in the emptiness of the space around her. But she could hear nothing, which only added to her fear.
Daylight was filtering through the windows, and lighting up the passageway which had been her escape route a short while ago. Now the deterioration was plain to see, whereas in her earlier haste when fleeing for her life, she hadn’t seen any of it. She passed a staircase, presumably one used by the servants in the past, which was so black with grime it was hardly noticeable.
Walls blackened with age and mildewed by years of water ingress, generated a malodorous aroma which pervaded the building. She was shocked to see how progressive the decay was.
As she continued through the building she could hear the distant sound of voices - calm voices, not agitated or highly charged, but quiet and stable. Certain in her mind that the voices belonged to Midgley and Charlene, Kelly felt relieved though somewhat puzzled.
She headed closer to where the sounds were coming from, whilst searching for the room with the smoking pipe and the teapot, which she remembered was somewhere near. But when she finally found herself standing inside it, there was no flickering light, no fire burning in the hearth, no picture-laden walls - just nothing. There was nothing but decay. Gone were the elegant window drapes, only the wooden shutters remained, and one of those was hanging precariously at an angle on a single rusted hinge. The others had given up the struggle and lay strewn in pieces on the floor. The fireplace was cold and tarnished, and there was no smoking pipe - and certainly no teapot. Kelly couldn’t think straight. She knew this was the room, of that there was no doubt in her mind. She walked around the room, searching for one tiny shred of evidence which would prove something – but what? What was there to prove – that she was losing her sanity?
She ran the thoughts over and over in her mind of what she had seen earlier, but faced a blank wall. She was unable to come to terms with what she was seeing.
Mr Midgley had already sown the seeds of doubt in her mind, when he had told her with such certainty that the gates through which she had entered had not been open for years. There was only one possible
conclusion – she must have been hallucinating.
She walked across the hallway to the dining room which she had been in earlier, but just as she expected that too was empty and bare. The stone inglenook fireplace, which had earlier boasted pride of place in the room, looked forlorn and shabby, and the rusted grate was filled with years of fallen soot.
As she ventured further into the house she came across the kitchen, but it contained only a few old cupboards set deep into the walls. There was a rusty old range, a dirt-ridden flagged floor, and a large clothes rack which dangled hazardously from the ceiling, on a frayed rope suspended from the pulleys - and everywhere was dark and musty. The dreadful smell of decay was everywhere. She searched other rooms too, and as she drew closer to the sound of familiar voices, she began to feel much easier. Terror reigned no more. All was calm and she no longer felt threatened.
But there was one final quest before joining the others. In order to satisfy her peace of mind and to quell all earlier thoughts and doubts, she must go in search of the priest’s hole. Surely that would hold the key, to open or close the door to the truth of what she saw, or thought she had seen.
And so she went in search of the library.
It didn’t take long before she found herself walking into the room which had started her terrible journey into the unknown. The first things she saw were her shoes sitting neatly by the fireplace alongside her torch. She had left her shoes in the priest’s hole, and her torch had fallen deep into the chasm – so how had they got there? A shiver ran down her spine. She walked over and stooped to lift them, but hesitated for a second as if the mere thought of touching them would lead to some kind of contamination. A strange sense of being watched compelled her to look around the room before picking up the shoes, but there was obviously no-one around. She hurriedly put them on whilst wondering if he’d put them there in another attempt to unnerve her – or perhaps to trap her knowing full well that she was likely to come looking for them. And for a moment she felt afraid again. Until her common sense came to the rescue once more, and reminded her that none of it had happened, that it was all a figment of her imagination. And the proof was there staring her in the face, as she looked round the library.
The walls were full of empty book shelves. There wasn’t a trace of ancient books, rare folios, or mediaeval manuscripts. The room was shabby and empty of furnishings. Its dreariness was exposed by shafts of light forcing themselves through the rotting timber of the shutters. Nothing resembled what she had seen – or thought she had seen. It was all in her mind.
But she needed to find the priest’s hole – she just knew it had to exist. It was right for this age and type of property – and it had been so real. Surely she hadn’t imagined that too? So she persevered, and feverishly pushed at the panelling around the area where she was convinced the opening had been. But nothing was happening, nothing would move.
This time she had to accept the truth.
Her mind was in turmoil. Part of her – actually all of her - didn’t want it to have happened. No-one would want that, but the alternative was a bitter pill to swallow.
Could it have all been in her mind like a drug-induced hallucination, caused by the steep climb up to the Grange - as she had originally thought? Or perhaps an imaginary dream, derived from a form of hypnotic trance caused by her short fainting spell? The horror of it all was like waking up from a nightmare which still stubbornly clung to the memory, refusing to let go.
The experience wasn’t new to her - she had been there before.
The mental breakdown which she had suffered after the death of her parents had caused the same symptoms - hallucinations. It was a time when her brain had been invaded by an alien truth about the fragility of the human mind. She had been to a very dark place - a place which she knew would haunt her for a very long time. After long periods of treatment she was diagnosed as cured – and she didn’t want to go back there.
Kelly concluded that this must be a wake-up call - a time to take stock of her life. Working beyond the call of duty in order to blank out the truth of her memories, must have finally taken its toll.
She must heed the warning to make sure that it could never happen again.
Somewhere in the distance Kelly could hear the echo of footsteps as they drew closer. She slipped on her shoes, and inspected the torch for signs of damage. There wasn’t any - even though the torch had bounced around the floor and fallen deep into the void. But it hadn’t done any of those things had it?
“Ah there you are!” Mr Midgley’s words resounded through the empty corridor, as he joined her in the library with Charlene close at his heels. “You’ll no doubt be pleased to learn that we found no signs of anyone here. But I will investigate the matter of the key. I have no idea where it came from, but someone must have got in and then unbolted the door in order to use the key later. It’s almost impossible to find a point of entry in a place as big as this, but I’m sure the truth will reveal itself eventually. But at least they’re gone now.”
There was no mention of dead bodies - or murder.
Kelly’s feelings were a mixture of relief and disappointment. Her main concern was Mr Midgely’s opinion of her as a professional counterpart, but she worked hard to hide her humiliation. She mumbled her apologies for the unnecessary trouble she had caused, but no-one seemed to be giving it any thought.
On the quiet, Charlene’s imagination had been working overtime, having now enjoyed a grand tour of the place. She’d convinced herself that sinister forces had somehow been at work, and that there was much more to it than meets the eye. But she remained tongue-tied, afraid to reveal her thoughts –at least for the moment. But the look of horror on Kelly’s face, as she ran into the courtyard earlier, was firmly rooted in her mind. That, intertwined with the eerie atmosphere of The Grange, was enough to drive even the hardened sceptic into wild imaginings, so it wasn’t difficult for the inquisitive Charlene to have a vivid picture in her mind of what might have happened.
Kelly’s thoughts were in deep turmoil as she tossed the events around in her head, and Mr Midgley’s next remark only added to her confused state of mind.
“I checked the old gates at the front, and just as I thought they haven’t moved in years. So you couldn’t have opened or closed them, it’s not physically possible. You must have driven in from the courtyard and continued round to the front of the house. You obviously parked up and walked back again to the rear. It’s easy to get disorientated in a place of this magnitude, and however strange that may seem to you young lady, it’s the only sensible conclusion.”
Kelly smiled and nodded in agreement at his condescending manner. Least said soonest mended was the only way to hide her embarrassment. Until, that is, Charlene’s voice interrupted her silence.
“Didn’t you say the front door was open Kelly?” her curiosity obviously getting the better of her.
“It’s pretty obvious Charlene that I was in a state of confusion - and before you say it, I know that’s just not like me. But it’s the only explanation I have. I had a very chaotic drive up here through the woods. The appalling storm on top of that had obviously disorientated me, resulting in a heightened state of mind. I can’t add any more, there’s nothing else to say.” Her response was curt and to the point, and was intended to stop any speculation before it could begin.
“You sound as if you came up the old dirt-track route from the days of horses and carts. It’s just about possible to get a small car through there - and that’s why you remembered the old gated entrance so well, because that’s where the track would have taken you. You obviously took a wrong turn to have come up that way. It’s easily done on these moors, especially during a storm. Nothing matches the harsh elements of the Yorkshire moors – they’re not for the faint-hearted. It’s a way of life to some folks, but nonetheless they have to be born to it.”
Mr Midgely’s explanation sounded feasible and Kelly didn’t want to contradict him in any shape o
r form, because she knew deep down there was only one truth. She was certain that somehow the experience of the storm, and that dreadful journey through the woods –as well as not having had a good breakfast, had made her hallucinate. And she knew from experience that hallucinations convince you at the time, that what you are seeing is really happening.
In the meantime, Charlene had been quietly pondering on what was being said. That morning at the office, she had heard Fee warning Kelly of strange happenings at The Grange – or rumours of some kind, and she no longer wanted to hear of a boring and rational explanation. This was a big old spooky house which could easily trigger all kinds of ideas to swirl around in one’s mind - especially if that someone had a vivid imagination. And Charlene had exactly that. Whilst at first she hadn’t had the slightest suspicion that Kelly had actually seen anything, her mind began to gradually change when she was walking around the house with Mr Midgely. That had sparked off all kinds of speculative thoughts in her head - and she rather liked the idea of the ghostly ones. Of course Fee had not actually said what those rumours were about – and no-one, to her knowledge, had ever even hinted at the possibility of ghosts, ghouls, or anything along those lines for that matter – but wasn’t it obvious? What else could it possibly be? The place must be haunted.
“I’m sorry Charlene for my silly outbursts when you kindly came to help me. I’ve been working too hard lately, and the long hours must have finally got to me. I seem to have wasted a lot of time for everyone this morning.”
“All work and no play won’t do you any good at all,” Mr Midgely conjectured.
“I can see that now.” Kelly assured him.
“Good! Now I think it’s time we got down to work, so we can get out of this place before the dark descends on us – it will come without warning. We haven’t got long left. ”