Three Times Removed

by M K Jones

  “But it’s just surmise,” Nick broke in.

  “Yes,” Maggie replied with a sigh. “And maybe that’s all it will ever be.” She turned to Alan. “It’s frustrating, isn’t it, that we almost know, but we can’t prove it definitively.”

  “Well, if you can’t, you can’t.” Zelah’s voice broke the hush. “Isn’t there anything else you know about her, Mr Kerr? About her personality? Likes and dislikes? Didn’t you ask your grandmother anything about Esme as a person?” The question carried a rebuke, and Alan blushed.

  “No, I’m afraid I didn’t. At the time I didn’t think of it. It didn’t matter much to me. Now, of course…” He let the sentence hang in the air.

  “But is there anything else?” Zelah was even sharper and Alan turned and frowned at her.

  “No, there isn’t. Why do you keep asking?”

  “She’s trying not to prompt you.” It was Jack who spoke.

  “What do you mean, Jack?” asked Maggie.

  But he shook his head. “I think I understand where Zelah’s coming from,” he said, hesitantly. “Everything’s just a guess. To really get to the truth, mum and Mr Kerr have to have the same part of the story and unless they get to it independently, each one may be unknowingly influenced by the other.”

  “Clever boy!” Zelah exclaimed. “There is another common part to this story, but until you both tell it, I’m not going to say anything.” She waved away Maggie’s protest. “If a fourteen-year-old boy can figure it out, then you should be able to, too.” Lucy scowled at Zelah and she pulled at Alan’s arm to whisper in his ear. Zelah took the chance to speak in a low voice to Maggie. “I told you I’ve got some more information for you, but I don’t want to tell it here and now. We need to talk about Eira Probert.”

  Maggie nodded, as Alan turned from his wife and addressed the group. “Lucy thinks we’ve gone as far as we can go today. And we have another engagement this afternoon. There’s just one more thing, though. You said you might know about our family naming tradition.”

  “Again, just a guess.” Maggie said hesitantly. “It’s based on something I found in the library. I know from my letters that our Alice was upset by the death of a friend. I found a small newspaper article talking about the accidental death of the daughter of a girl who worked for her father, a girl called Esme Ellis. Alice ran away from home within days of Esme’s funeral. Esme died in a drowning accident, by the way. I think she may have been Alice’s best friend. I also think they looked a lot like each other. I have a photo I can show you. I’m sure it’s of Alice, and standing next to her is Esme Ellis. If your Esme was actually Alice, and if she somehow turned up at Knyghton in a poorly state, she may have been confused enough to think that she was called Esme, especially if Moira Davies kept calling her that. And if, as you say, she had flashbacks later in life, it may be possible that she remembered who Esme really was and kept her memory alive by remembering her name. Or, she liked her new life better than the old one, and decided to keep up the pretence.” She paused and smiled ruefully. “But it’s all just guesswork without any actual proof, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid it is.” He stood up.

  Maggie stood to face him. “Here’s my telephone number, Alan. I’m going back to work next week, so I’m spending this week doing as much as I can, but my time for research effectively comes to and end by Friday. If I find anything new, I’ll let you know at once.”

  He nodded and shook her hand. They all stood, as Lucy called sharply to Esme. The girls, who had part listened and part chatted, were exchanging online chatroom details. Lucy took Esme’s arm and led her away.

  Sixty Nine

  Nick Howell hadn’t followed them out, and was hovering uncertainly.

  “You might as well sit down with us,” Zelah said to him. “Anyone want another drink?”

  The children nodded enthusiastically and went to the bar with Zelah, leaving Maggie and Nick together.

  “So close,” Maggie murmured.

  Without speaking, he jumped up and ran across the pub lounge with a great lolloping stride, and straight out of the door, leaving Maggie sitting with her mouth open. Zelah had seen him and turned to give Maggie a quizzical look, to which she replied with an open handed shrug.

  “What do you think?” she asked Zelah as they came back to the table with their drinks.

  “It’s very close, but not enough. Margaret Peach’s daughter was called Esme, which could also account for the naming tradition. But I agree with your interpretation. Something terrible happened to Alice when she ran away. She was heading for Weston, but never got there and somehow ended up at Knyghton, more than half dead. If Moira Davies was about to set out to find her niece, she’s likely to have called the child ‘Esme’ and that’s why Alice thought it was her name. If she was close to death, she wouldn’t have been able to explain or understand. She turned into Esme Peach. ‘Flashbacks’ suggest she had amnesia. It all fits.”

  Before Maggie could reply, Nick came running back in and sat down beside them, breathing heavily.

  “Something I wanted to ask Alan about. Sorry. Had to catch him before he left.”

  “Anything useful for us?”

  “Yes, I think so. I’ll see him tomorrow. I’ll let you know.”

  “What’s your take on what we all heard today, Nick?” asked Maggie.

  He looked at her, picked up his glass and finished his drink, then looked at a space a few feet above her head. Zelah began to fidget.

  “What happened to make Alice run away from home, from her mum and dad? It would have taken her days to walk from that farm to the port. She was only ten.”

  “Do you think that’s important?”

  “Yes. I think it’s at the heart of your mystery. Did she fall out with her parents? Or did something else happen that made her run? Was it to do with her friend’s death? Is that strange schoolteacher anything to do with it?” He was muttering inner thoughts out loud rather than actually asking her for answers to the questions.

  “I think you can solve this by sitting down and putting together everything you know, in a list, point by point,” he continued into his glass.

  Maggie looked at Zelah, but found only a blank face. “What do you think, Zel? You and I need to talk anyway.”

  “Why not now?”

  As Zelah spoke the wind blew the pub door open, distracting them all. Jack got up and walked across the room to close it. He came back holding his nose. “We aren’t thinking of eating here, are we, Mum?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it, but why not? It’ll save me having to do it at home and it’ll make a break in your entertaining schedule.”

  “Because there’s a terrible smell outside, like something’s going off.” He pulled a disgusted face. “If it’s yesterday’s food, I’m not going to try today’s.”

  Without a word, Maggie stood up and walked out of the bar, leaving them all staring at her back, except for Zelah. After a few minutes she came back in, hair ruffled into a bird’s nest by the wind.

  “Same?” Zelah asked.

  Maggie nodded, smoothing her hair back into shape with one hand as she picked up her bag with the other.

  “Time to go home, I think.” She paused for a moment, then turned to Nick.

  “Would you like to come with us, have some lunch and hear the rest of this story?”

  He looked surprised at being included. “Thank you, but I’m not sure why you’re asking me,” he mumbled.

  “Because you see significant, objective detail in the story and that’s what we need, now. But it’s up to you.”

  “Then I will, thank you.” He shuffled to his feet. “Follow you in my van, shall I?”

  Maggie nodded. “Come on, kids. Let’s go and take a look at the Channel before we go.”

  “I think I’ll pass,” Alice replied as they walked out. “Too windy.”

  Maggie gave Alice the car key and she went with Zelah to sit in the car. Maggie and Jack climbed
the steps to the top of the high breakwater. Nick walked to his white van. The lettering on the side said “Howell Window Cleaning”. Maggie hadn’t thought about what he did for a living.

  At the top of the breakwater they had to fight to stand up in the wind blowing straight at them off the Bristol Channel. It was a clear day, with the rising blue-grey coastline of Somerset visible across the expanse of muddy water. Maggie stood for a moment staring at the choppy waves that were rising up the embankment. Lost in her thoughts, she suddenly noticed that Jack was mouthing something at her, but his words were lost in the wind.

  “Say that again, I can’t hear you.”

  “I said, I’ll keep a close eye out.”

  “Oh, OK.” she responded, not really giving any thought to what he was talking about.

  Seeing that he wasn’t going to get any more of a reply, he shrugged his shoulders and went back down the steps, leaving Maggie alone. Halfway down he stopped, sniffed and screwed up his nose.

  “Mum!”

  She turned to look down at him, held her forefinger to her lip, and ran down the steps to join him. He opened his mouth to try to engage her in conversation, but she hushed him again and pointed to the car, where Alice was sitting with Zelah.

  “We have to get home. It’s safer there. Then we’ll talk.”

  Seventy

  Maggie organised a makeshift lunch. The force of the wind had increased and rainclouds loomed heavy. It was too blustery to eat in the garden, so they sat around the kitchen table, chatting a little, but mostly pondering what they had heard. After lunch Maggie led the way into the sitting room. Nick stood hesitantly in the door until Maggie nodded him to the settee. Jack and Alice decided to go to the computer, to see if they could resume Alice’s conversation with Esme Kerr.

  Once they were safely out of earshot, Maggie turned to Nick. “Before we start,” she began, “I want to tell you the parts I missed out at the pub. There’s another… dimension to this story.”

  For the next few minutes she spoke about her connection with Ruth, the events Alice claimed to have witnessed, the troubled dreams, the likeness in the photographs, and the events at the graveside. As she finished, she looked at him, waiting for a comment, but none came.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  He looked puzzled. “I think there’s another dimension to this story.”

  “Aren’t you at all sceptical?”

  He thought for a moment. “At Knyghton,” he said slowly to the carpet, “I’ve heard strange stories. Some are nonsense, just imagination and nerves. But others aren’t. There’s seven hundred years of history there. I’ve had strange experiences. There’s another dimension. That’s all, really.”

  “But,” he went on, to Maggie’s surprise. “What about that smell? It bothered you.”

  “I’ve smelled it before, when I was almost pushed off the boat. It’s vile.”

  “Like something dying?”

  “I imagine it’s what gangrene must smell like. And the boat wasn’t the first time, either.”

  Zelah looked up at this. “You never said!”

  “I didn’t connect it until today. There was a very slight whiff, the day I found the gravestone. But nothing like as strong as it is now. Like a distant echo, not the sound itself. You know what I mean?”

  “How much stronger has it got?”

  “Today, for me, it was overpowering, Nick. I don’t think Jack got the half of it.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Maggie could see Zelah frowning. “Anyway, Zelah, we’ve come to the point. Eira Probert.”

  Zelah sat forwards, clenching her fists. “I told you that something rang a bell, something Martin’s dreadful old Irish mother used to talk about?”

  “Vaguely. I don’t remember you telling me what it was, though.”

  “I wanted to be sure of the story first.”

  Looking at Zelah’s face, Maggie felt anxious. She hadn’t known Zelah long, but had never seen her display pity, or anxiety. Of course, she knew it was there, but she kept it well hidden. Now, her friend was looking at her with tense eyes.

  “You’re worrying me.”

  Nick suddenly sat bolt upright on the settee and slapped his hands on his knees. For the first time he looked directly at Maggie’s face.

  “It’s a hunter!”

  Zelah’s exasperation burst directly at him. “Let me finish, damn it!”

  He looked over at her in amazement. “But it is, isn’t it. It’s stalking her family.” It was an affirmation, not a question.

  For a moment they stared at each other. To Maggie’s amazement, it was Zelah who gave way. “Yes, I believe it is. It’s stalking her.”

  “What are you two talking about? I’m not being stalked.” Maggie looked from one to the other and back again, puzzling to understand their horrified expressions.

  “Not the kind of stalker you mean,” Nick replied. “Not some pervert following you around, peeping through your windows.”

  “What then?” She looked to Zelah for an explanation.

  “It’s a legend. Martin’s mother used to talk about it as ‘the old bad luck’. And when people talk about being haunted, what they sometimes are is hunted.” As Maggie put out her hand to remonstrate, Zelah ignored her and went on.

  “You know how some families just seem to have problem after problem, tragedy after tragedy?” Maggie nodded guardedly. “Well, sometimes it’s more than just coincidence. It’s something that hunts one particular family. I think Ruth’s family was a victim.”

  Zelah’s voice had sunk lower as she spoke and she had leaned further forwards at the final sentence.

  “Think about what you’ve learned about your past,” Zelah added. “Tragedies, disappearances, drowning. All with the same pattern. With one common link. A school teacher called Eira Probert. Think about what Ruth’s letter said. She saw the teacher at her husband’s funeral, unchanged after over thirty-odd years.”

  “The photograph!” Maggie jumped up and ran out of the room.

  “She found a photograph of Ruth’s Alice and another girl we think is probably Esme Ellis. A school photograph,” Zelah explained.

  “This is strong,” Nick spoke to Zelah. “Some of those shapes at the house are just shadows, unfinished parts of a human body. They can’t get themselves out of one place, or find the people they’re looking for. If they’re glimpsed they can scare people, but that’s all they can manage. But not this one.”

  “No,” Zelah replied quietly. “Not this one. Maggie inherited Ruth’s memory, and once she actively remembered, she created the way for it to come back again.”

  “They shouldn’t be here, of course.” He paused for a moment, then looked directly at Zelah. They seemed to be finishing each other’s thoughts.

  “I’ve been researching for years. I don’t really know what they are. They can reform themselves from pure energy when the conditions are right until they look like us and talk like us. They don’t die, like us. They disintegrate and re-form. Over and over.” He paused for a moment. Zelah didn’t comment. “And it can’t be stopped. They are malicious and evil. And the worst thing for Maggie and her family is…”

  The sound of Maggie’s footsteps made them turn their heads towards the door. She ran back in and threw herself into the armchair.

  “Here it is!” She held out the photo towards Zelah. Nick moved off the settee and the three of them gathered around it, staring at the picture of the class of 1883. None of them noticed Jack entering the room behind Maggie. He stood just inside the doorway, watching their heads bend together over the picture.

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” Although he had spoken quietly, all three adults turned to look at him.

  “You’ve seen it already. You know the likeness to Alice,” Maggie replied, frowning.

  He went to speak, but Zelah got in first. “What’s the connection, Jack? You talked about it in the pub. What do you know?”

  He walked into the room and sat on the floor
in front of Maggie, looking up at her.

  “They were talking about it in the pub. You weren’t listening, but I was. They thought it was a coincidence, but when I heard your conversation just now, I knew it wasn’t. They’re chatting about it now on the internet.”

  He looked at Zelah with an agonised expression. “It is her, isn’t it? What’s she going to do?”

  “What are your talking about, Jack? I don’t understand what you are talking about?” Maggie raised her voice, angry with him. “You’re not making sense!”

  “Yes, he is,” Zelah snapped at her. “He’s put it all together quicker than you have. Alice has been having trouble at school with a teacher, hasn’t she? Did you ever ask the teacher’s name?”

  “It was a teaching assistant, not a teacher, and she’s gone now.” Maggie looked from Zelah to Jack. “I don’t remember the name. It was a nickname, wasn’t it, that the kids used to call her.”

  “Bigbutt,” he replied. “They called her Iva Bigbutt.”

  As she stared at him, realisation began to dawn, with a feeling in her stomach like slithering snakes. “What was her actual name, Jack?”

  They hadn’t heard Alice come running down the stairs. She burst into the living room finger pointing at Jack. “Where did you go?” she accused her brother. “You’ll never guess what, now!”

  Maggie stood up and took both of Alice’s hands. “What was your nasty teaching assistant’s name, Alice?”

  “You prick, you told before I got a chance!” Alice struggled to get her hands out of Maggie’s grip and take a swipe at Jack.

  “What was the name, Alice?”

  The little girl paused and looked fully at her mother. She never normally got away without punishment for using bad language.

  “Why’re you looking at me like that?” When Maggie didn’t answer, she looked at Jack, then at Zelah and Nick. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”

  “What was the name, Alice?”

  “Her real name was Miss Probert, but we called her…”

  “We know what you called her. Did you talk about her to Esme Kerr?”

  “Yes, isn’t it amazing, she was at Esme’s school, on Friday.” She smirked in satisfaction. “What’s the matter with you all? You look like someone’s just died or something!” When nobody answered, she tutted at them and walked out of the room, calling back, “I’m going back to speak to Esme. At least she answers me.”