by Lucy Banks
“What about my chocolate cake?” Mike asked. “I’m hungry!”
“Not now, Mike. If you want a cake so badly, get off your bottom and get it yourself,” Miss Wellbeloved barked. Without another word, she ushered Kester into the office and closed the door.
Kester sat in the swivel chair, waiting for her to speak.
“Kester,” she began, then paused. Her hands wound restlessly around one another, pressing into her thin lap.
“You’re going to say that we need to prepare to manage the agency without Dad, aren’t you?” he guessed.
She looked at him and nodded. “His condition seems to have become rather worse recently. He can’t keep coming into work like this. He needs to be at home.”
Kester sighed. He studied the rug whilst waiting for his brain to come up with an appropriate answer. “What do you propose we do, then?” he asked finally.
“Without your father, we should all manage just fine when it’s a small job. But if we get another national job, we must accept that we’ll need help.”
“We managed okay with the Scottish fetch last week,” Kester reminded her. “Dad didn’t join us for that job until the very last minute.”
“But we had Larry Higgins and his crew to assist us,” Miss Wellbeloved replied. “You might think Larry is a prat, but you can’t deny that Dimitri and Lara were useful.”
“Luke,” Kester corrected automatically.
“Yes, of course. I’ll remember in the end,” Miss Wellbeloved said with a smile.
Kester leaned forward, studying her intently. She’s got a plan up her sleeve, he realised, and she’s just been waiting for the right time to talk to me about it.
Miss Wellbeloved flinched under his scrutiny. “What are you thinking, Kester?”
“I’m figuring out what you’re trying to suggest.” Kester continued, “Are you saying we should hire more staff? I hardly think we’re in a position to do that, are we?”
She laughed. “No. We’re certainly not. I had something else in mind, actually.”
Kester raised an eyebrow. He knew that expression very well. It meant that his instincts were right, and that Miss Wellbeloved had come up with a plan. “Go on?” he encouraged.
“If we get a national case,” she began, choosing her words carefully, “then I suggest we merge with another agency to ensure we can cope with the volume of work involved. That’ll mean we’re in a much stronger position to pitch for jobs.”
“You’re talking about merging with Larry Higgins, aren’t you?” Kester sighed. The logic of the argument was good, but the thought of working with Larry again wasn’t pleasant at all. Throughout the Scottish fetch case, he’d been negative, argumentative, and, perhaps most annoyingly of all, highly pompous.
Miss Wellbeloved shrugged. “Would it be so bad, working with them? Luke and Dimitri were great to work with. We made a good team.”
“Yeah, they were fine,” Kester agreed, “but Larry was a total nightmare.” He shuddered. “Plus, Dad hates him with a vengeance. He’s not going to be delighted at the suggestion that we buddy up with Larry’s agency, is he?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Well,” she began, “Julio keeps saying you need to take more control of the agency. And I’m second-in-command anyway. So, between the two of us, I think we’ll convince him.”
You sound far more confident than I feel, Kester thought. However, he couldn’t deny that the idea made sense. They’d be far more likely to win contracts with more people on board. “Surely Larry Higgins wouldn’t be that keen to work with us again, would he?” he said.
Miss Wellbeloved smiled. “Actually, I talked to Larry about it a while ago. I think he’d be happy to join forces, if it meant securing more national contracts. The more nationals we win, the less that go to Infinite Enterprises, eh?”
“Sounds like you’ve got this all mapped out,” Kester said wryly.
“I have given it some thought, yes,” Miss Wellbeloved admitted. She looked at her watch. “Gosh, it’s nearly two o’clock. We need to be at Beer Quarry Caves by three. Are you joining us?”
“Do I have to?” Kester asked.
Miss Wellbeloved rolled her eyes. “No, you don’t,” she said, “but if you do, you’ll be getting invaluable experience. Which will help no end with your studies.”
“It’s only a preliminary visit, isn’t it?” Kester frowned. He’d overheard Serena and Pamela discussing the new case this morning, and he hadn’t liked the sound of it at all. The words “hag” and “dribble” had been used, which hadn’t exactly filled him with enthusiasm.
“Yes, and that’s all the more reason for you to come,” Miss Wellbeloved concluded. “It’s just a brief chat with the staff, and a quick look around the caves.”
“It’s that ‘quick look around the caves’ part that’s bothering me,” Kester replied. “Caves are dark and scary. In fact, it’s fair to say that I really, really hate caves.”
Miss Wellbeloved stood up and extended a hand to the door. “Come on. I insist you come with us. It’s another easy case, and you need to get used to these things if you’re going to take over the agency one day.”
Kester groaned, but followed her out nonetheless.
After gathering up the necessary equipment, the team headed out of the office, ignoring the wintry chill outside. They bundled into the van, which was even harder to get started than usual. Mike informed them all, with more than a hint of resentment, that it was because of the long journey they’d had to make up to Scotland and back.
“If you put pressure on the van, she doesn’t like it,” he grumbled as the engine finally spluttered into life.
“Mike, it’s a car, not a person,” Serena sneered, then she nearly fell into Pamela’s lap as Mike accelerated, then jerked the van around the corner.
“It’s definitely got colder, hasn’t it?” Kester pulled his coat more tightly around himself. They’d only been in the van a few minutes, but already the combined heat of their breath was misting up the freezing windows.
“It is November, mate,” Mike replied, deftly swinging the van into an available space in the busy traffic. “What do you expect?”
“I heard there was snow up on Dartmoor,” Pamela said as she rubbed her hands together. “Perhaps it’ll snow down here too.”
“As long as there’s no snow on the way to Beer Quarry Caves, I don’t mind,” Miss Wellbeloved said. She fiddled with the controls, then sighed. “We really must get the heating fixed in this van, Mike.”
“Why are you telling me?” he asked, concentrating on the road. “Ribero’s the one who holds the company purse-strings. Get him to book it in for a service.”
“Perhaps you could fix it, as you’re such a whizz with machinery?” Serena asked, sarcasm dripping from every word.
“Fat chance,” Mike retorted. “I can only work with machines that were built after the Industrial Revolution. This relic is beyond even my capabilities.”
“So,” Kester interrupted, leaning forward, “is this some sort of hag we’re going to investigate then?”
“Spot on,” Miss Wellbeloved confirmed. “It’s a hag o’ the dribble. We don’t get many of them down these parts, but they’re certainly not unheard of.”
“Hang on a moment.” Kester had a whole range of unpleasant images in his head now and wasn’t sure which one to settle on. Is this some sort of witchy thing that dribbles everywhere? he wondered with a grimace. She’d better not dribble on me. I only washed this shirt last night.
“You want to know what a hag o’ the dribble is?” Serena guessed with a dramatic roll of the eyes.
“Go on then, spoil me,” Kester retorted. “What is it?”
“A hag o’ the dribble is a fairly minor spirit, but a nuisance nonetheless,” she began.
“Not a nuisance, just different,” Miss Wellbeloved corrected.<
br />
“Yes, yes. Whatever.” Serena’s lips tightened. “Anyway, it likes to collect stones and throw them down on unsuspecting people. Which is where the name comes from. The spirit sends down a dribble of stones. Do you see?”
Kester wrinkled his nose. “I thought you said this was a minor spirit? Lobbing rocks at people’s heads doesn’t sound minor to me. That sounds horrible!”
Miss Wellbeloved chuckled. “Fortunately,” she said, wiping the condensation from her window to see better, “everyone who visits Beer Quarry Caves has to wear a hard-hat anyway, so they’re well protected.”
“Well that’s alright then,” Kester said sarcastically. He couldn’t think of many things worse than being in a dark cave and getting pelted with rocks by a mad spirit. He sighed as they reached the outskirts of the city and joined the busy main road, which was filled with commuting cars.
Forty minutes later, they pulled into the cave’s car-park. It was quiet, and the surrounding trees loomed over them, creating an unsettling, oppressive atmosphere. Kester got out and stretched, then spotted the dirt track leading up a steep incline. Oh good, we’re walking, he realised with a sinking heart. Yet again, we’ve got to trudge for miles in the cold. Hooray.
“Is everyone ready?” Miss Wellbeloved asked with a bright smile.
Mike slammed the van door and saluted. “Ready and at your service, ma’am.”
She gestured upwards. “Come on, then, let’s go. I hope you all wore sensible shoes today, it’s apparently quite slippery down in the caves.”
“Oh great, now you tell me,” Serena groaned. Kester glanced down at her shiny red stilettos and laughed. You’d think, by now, she’d have realised that high-heeled shoes aren’t great for this line of work, he thought, marching ahead with the others.
At the top, a little old man with a face like a badger came scuttling over to greet them, waving vigorously at them all.
“Aha,” he declared as he panted to a halt. “You must be Dr Ribero’s Agency.” A yellow hard-hat perched on his head like a scoop of ice-cream on a particularly small cone.
“Mr Smelter, I presume?” Miss Wellbeloved extended a hand, and the tiny man beamed.
“Absolutely correct, madam. And I must say, I am delighted you were able to come at such short notice. This isn’t the first incident we’ve had at the caves. There have been many over the years. In fact, I believe your father once came out to deal with a particularly tricky ghoul, many years ago.”
“Goodness me, it must have been a very long time ago if my father was still in charge of the agency,” Miss Wellbeloved said dryly. She gestured to a large basket by the side of the cabin, which was full to the brim of battered hard-hats. “I presume we each need to wear one of those?”
“Quite so,” Mr Smelter twinkled, giving his own helmet a tap. “We don’t want your precious heads to get hurt by low-hanging rock, do we?”
“Or by spirits throwing pebbles at us,” Kester muttered as he grabbed a hat.
“Whilst we’re walking down to the caves,” Miss Wellbeloved began, “I wonder if I could ask you a few questions?”
“Yes, of course,” the old man agreed. He led them back out to the dirt track, then pointed downwards, where the gravel path disappeared into the gloom of the trees. A soaring mass of rock flanked the path at the bottom, steely grey and rather forbidding. Kester sniffed. The air had a distinctly moist, mossy smell to it, which he always associated with caves. It’s the smell of wetness, trapped underground, he thought as they began to trek downhill. All those creepy subterranean rivers that people explore, only to be never seen again. He shuddered.
“When did the spirit start making itself known?” Miss Wellbeloved began, slowing her pace to ensure Mr Smelter could keep up.
“Only a few days ago,” he replied cheerfully. “It started throwing small stones at our visitors’ heads and producing an awful moaning noise. Very loud, it was.”
Mike dropped back to join them. “What did the visitors think?”
Mr Smelter chuckled. “They were all terrified. Thankfully, when it first started, I was the one leading the tour, so I told them it was just another visitor pretending to be a ghost. Then I got them out of there pretty sharpish.”
“That was quick thinking,” Miss Wellbeloved said, nodding with approval.
The old man shrugged. “As I said, I’ve seen this sort of thing before. I know how important it is to keep it hush-hush.”
“Well, it definitely sounds like a hag o’ the dribble,” Miss Wellbeloved concluded. “It’s exhibiting classic behaviour.”
“The last one we had was the same,” Mr Smelter said. “About fifteen or so years back. Could it be the same one? That one went away on its own in the end.”
“Entirely possible,” Miss Wellbeloved said as she pondered his comment. “They occasionally return to the same place, unless you give them a good enough reason not to.”
“For example, if you keep packing them off to the spirit world until they get bored and give up,” Mike added, jauntily skipping over a loose pile of stones.
Miss Wellbeloved gave him a look. “Not that we normally have to do that, as most spirits are highly amenable,” she tutted.
They rounded the corner. Kester looked up and gasped. The sight was formidable, to say the least. A sheer rock-face hung above them, lichen-coated and dank in the dim light. Tucked at the bottom of the rock was a pair of roughly-cut entrances barred with thick metal gates. It looks like the entrance to an ancient prison, Kester thought as his stomach did an involuntary lurch. It wasn’t a promising start.
“Looks like a nice, welcoming spot,” Pamela said with a giggle.
“It’s got atmosphere, hasn’t it?” the old man agreed, giving her a wink.
Kester gulped. He personally didn’t find it amusing at all. Yet again, another location that looks as though it’s straight out of a horror film, he thought, feeling his chest tighten. “Is there light in the caves?” he squeaked.
Mr Smelter laughed. “A bit, yes. Plus, we’ve got this.” He rapped the headlight on his hat, then inserted a key into the lock, yanking the gate open with a loud screech. To Kester’s horror, the noise echoed forlornly through the unseen caves beyond.
“How exciting!” Pamela exclaimed, oblivious to the sombre surroundings. She skipped through, her footsteps replicated against the vast, damp walls. Kester winced, then scurried after her. Better that than being the last one to come in, he thought as he took one final look at the outside world. It’s always the people bringing up the rear that get picked off first.
They followed Mr Smelter down a dark, dripping passageway to the first of the caverns, a huge space only interrupted by squat pillars carved out of the rock. “Is this a man-made cave?” Kester asked as he looked around in bafflement.
“Yes, it was an old quarry, like the name suggests,” Mr Smelter confirmed. His voice boomed unnaturally in the darkness. “Romans used to quarry down here. Some of the country’s finest cathedrals are made from Beer stone, I’ll have you know.”
“Impressive,” Kester whispered, surveying the surrounding walls. In the silence, he could imagine ancient quarrymen, chiselling relentlessly against the rock. I wonder if the Romans had to put up with spirits too? he thought. He imagined a burly Roman centurion running screaming from a spirit and grinned.
“Do you want to take us to the spot where you first heard the hag o’ the dribble?” Miss Wellbeloved asked as she pulled her cardigan tightly around herself. “Then we can proceed with the preliminary investigations.”
Mr Smelter nodded, headlight casting long shadows over the uneven floor. “Yep. I’ll lead you there now. Can I stay and watch?”
“We won’t be doing much today, to be honest,” Miss Wellbeloved replied as she followed him into the next chamber. “Mike will take a few readings, and Pamela will assess the environment, but I doubt the s
pirit will show itself. They’re notoriously secretive when we’re around.”
“Because they know that we’re about to get rid of them,” Serena added. She cursed as one of her stilettos splashed into a puddle.
“Whoops, mind your step, Serena,” Mike said, deliberately nudging her out of the way. “Don’t want your heels getting stuck in any holes.”
Kester couldn’t make out Serena’s hissed response, but he was certain it contained a swear word or two.
Winding a path through the blackness, they finally reached the largest cavern of all—more an underground warehouse than a cave. Mr Smelter pulled to a stop, then pointed ahead. “This is the spot,” he declared as he patted the nearest stone pillar. “We call this place the Saxon area. Can you see? The walls have been carved differently. It’s much squarer than the Roman zone.”
“Fascinating,” Kester said, enrapt. He let his gaze travel over the flat planes of the rock face, wondering about the people who’d quarried here hundreds of years ago.
“Look at him, he’s in his element,” Mike said and poked Kester in the ribs. “You’re such an academic, aren’t you?”
“More like a nerd,” Serena laughed.
The wall-lights flickered briefly. Mr Smelter frowned, and they fell silent.
“I take it that doesn’t usually happen,” Miss Wellbeloved said eventually. She surveyed the cave coolly, then gave the others a nod.
“No, it doesn’t,” the old man replied slowly. He adjusted his headlight to full brightness just as the main lights went out. Kester squealed.
“What happened?” he said, focusing on the disembodied faces of his team-mates, lit only by the meek light radiating from Mr Smelter’s hat.
Mike tittered. “What do you think happened? The lights went out, didn’t they!”
“But I don’t like it,” Kester protested. He was aware that his voice had taken on a whining quality, not dissimilar to one best suited to a small child, but he couldn’t stop himself. Why do spirits always do things like this? he wondered as he peered anxiously into the pitch black. Honestly, it would help a lot more with spirit and human relations if they’d leave the lights on every so often.