A Twist of the Knife (22 page)

I saw an endless stream of people, all in white robes, each carrying a small parcel wrapped in white cloth. They were coming out of the wall in front of me, to the right, crossing the landing, and disappearing into the wall on the left.

They were oblivious to me. One after another. Then another, then another. Silent, serious, men and women, some young, some not so young. All in these strange robes. All carrying a white parcel.

For some moments, I thought I must be dreaming. But I was awake. I did that cliché thing of pinching myself, and realized that I was very definitely awake. I stood there, quaking with fear, unsure what to do. I don’t remember for how long I stood there. Some of them seemed to half turn towards me, as if there was something they wanted to communicate, but then they carried on, fading into the wall on the left hand side.

I backed away, turned and dived into our bedroom, slamming the door shut, the noise waking Kerry.

‘Wossat?’ she murmured, sleepily.

I turned on the light. I had to wake her fully. She needed to see this – or convince me that I was hallucinating. I told her to go and take a look at the landing.

‘I’m so sleepy,’ she said.

I felt really bad about disturbing her. But I had to be reassured I wasn’t either hallucinating or going mad. Every inch of my flesh was covered in goosebumps. I’d never, ever, felt so spooked in my life.

‘Please go and look on the landing,’ I pleaded.

Finally, very reluctantly, she slipped out of bed, in her nightdress, padded across the floor and opened the door, with me right behind her.

Then she just stood there, mesmerized. I will always remember her face as she turned to me for as long as I live.

It was the face of someone who has stared into the pit of Hell.

We clutched each other, and stared at the procession of people. It went on and on and on. I don’t know for how long we stood there. These eerie people in white, carrying their parcels of white, all looking serious, purposeful, on a journey, heading towards a clear destination.

‘What’s going on?’ she murmured, terrified.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied, equally terrified, but trying, unsuccessfully, to remain calm. I was having a dream, a nightmare, that was the only possible explanation.

Then Kerry lit a cigarette. That was another thing – she had given up smoking – her thirty-fags-a-day habit – for Darren. I’d given up too, in support. She handed me the Silk Cut, and I took a drag, inhaled the sweet smoke, and that was when I knew this was for real.

The next few minutes were a blur. I don’t remember us leaving the house and running across the road. All I can remember is hammering on the door of our neighbours, then finding the bell and ringing it, and a minute or so later seeing light come on behind the glass panel at the top of the door. Moments later, it opened and Rob stood there in his pyjamas, with a quizzical expression I will never forget. I almost hugged him in relief.

‘Need to use your phone!’ I blurted. ‘Police. I’m so sorry. I—’

Suddenly, away from the madness that our house had become, none of what we had experienced seemed real any more. I’ve never had any truck with God, or the supernatural, none of that shit. My dad died when I was twenty, when an Army truck rammed the back of his car during a motorway pile-up. My mum died of cancer two years later – triggered by shock and grief, my sister always reckoned. Thanks, God!

I dialled the 9s, then was struck dumb when the operator answered, asked me which service I required. When a Police operator came on the line, I suddenly felt very foolish. ‘We’ve got . . . well . . . I sort of think . . . intruders in our house,’ I managed, finally. And I felt a right dickhead as I replaced the receiver.

Rob’s wife, Mandy came downstairs in her dressing gown, wondering what the commotion was. ‘I’m sorry,’ I blurted out. ‘There’s something strange going on in our house – I’ve just called the Police.’

Kerry suddenly collapsed on the sofa, sobbing. Mandy, bless her, sat down beside her and put an arm around her. And in a sudden moment of normality said, ‘I’ll make us all a cup of tea, shall I?’ She got up and went into the kitchen.

It seemed only moments later that streaks of blue light were skittering off the front windowpane. We heard a car pull up and I opened the front door to see two male uniformed officers standing there, one a middle-aged Sergeant, the other a much younger rookie constable, holding their caps in their hands.

Rob invited them in, and I stood in the little hallway, explaining what we had just seen to looks of extreme incredulity from Croydon’s finest. When I had finished, all too aware that what I had said sounded like the ramblings of a crazy, the Sergeant took a step forward and sniffed my breath.

‘Been drinking, have you, sir?’ he said, with extreme sarcasm.

‘No more than usual,’ I replied.

‘Walking out of the wall, are they, sir? All carrying something?’

I nodded.

‘It’s nearly Christmas,’ he said. ‘Maybe they’re bringing you Christmas presents. Was one of them dressed in red robes, with a long grey beard? I didn’t see any reindeer on the roof.’

Both their radios crackled into life. Both listened to the message. ‘We’re just attending at Ecclestone Close. We’ll be on our way in a minute,’ the Sergeant said.

‘Go and take a look,’ I said. ‘I’ve left the front door open.’

The Sergeant nodded at the rookie and pointed across the road with his finger. The young constable went out. Mandy came into the hall. ‘I’m just making a cuppa – would you both like one?’ she asked.

‘No, thank you, ma’am,’ the cynical cop replied. ‘There’s an accident on the A23 we need to attend.’

That made me feel bad. That I was keeping these officers from something far more important. Rob, the Sergeant and I stood there in awkward silence.

‘Nice development this estate,’ the Sergeant said. ‘Not been here before.’

‘We’ve only recently moved in,’ I said.

Moments later the front door was pushed open and the rookie stood there. His face was sheet white and he was shaking like a leaf. He could barely speak. ‘Sarge,’ he said. ‘I . . . I . . . I think you’d better go and take a look. I think I’m imagining things.’

Both officers strode back across the road and entered our house. I went into the living room and sat down beside Kerry, who was still sobbing, and tried to comfort her. Mandy brought us mugs of tea and a moment of normality returned as she asked us if we wanted milk and sugar.

Then there was a rap on the front door. I followed Rob as he went to answer it.

The Sergeant stood there, looking as shaken as his colleague, his face ashen. After some moments, the senior officer spoke. ‘I don’t know what to say Mr . . . er . . . Mr Wilson?’

I nodded.

‘It’s not someone playing a prank on you, is it?’

‘What do you think?’ I replied.

‘I didn’t . . . didn’t see . . . didn’t see any projector,’ the rookie said.

‘I don’t know what to think, sir,’ the Sergeant said. ‘I’ve not seen . . . not experienced . . . nothing . . . nothing like this in all the years I’ve been a police officer. I’m at a loss what to suggest. Has this happened before?’

‘No,’ I said very firmly.

‘I . . . I approached the . . . the intruders,’ he said. ‘I walked right through one and it was like stepping into a freezer. I think you’d better not go back to the house, not just yet.’

He was quivering all over, so much that I broke out in goosebumps myself at the sight of him.

‘They can stay the night here,’ Rob said kindly. ‘We’ll put them in the spare room.’

The two police officers looked like they could not wait to get away from here, but not because they needed to attend the other incident, the crash on the A23, the main London road. It looked to me as if they wanted, right then, to be anywhere but here. They seemed totally out of their comfort zone and, if nothing else, at least it gave me some reassurance that Kerry and I were not mad.

The Sergeant was holding his notebook in his hand and he tried to jot down some details, but his hand was shaking so much that after a few tries, he stopped. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Williams – I mean Wilson,’ he said to me. ‘I think I’m as shook up as you are. I . . . I don’t know . . . are you and Mrs Wilson of any religious persuasion?’

I told him we were both sort of lapsed Anglicans. I’d been confirmed as a child, and so had Kerry. But neither of us had had much time for religion since, although both of us had had parental pressure to have little Darren baptized.

The Sergeant said, ‘The only thing I can suggest is that you contact your local vicar in the morning and see what he has to say about this, Mr and Mrs Wilson.’

We stayed the night in our kind neighbours’ spare room, and in the morning ventured home. All was quiet there, back to normality. We packed some of our belongings into a suitcase and moved, temporarily, to Kerry’s parents’ home in Surbiton. Later that morning we drove to see our vicar – who we had never met before. He was a young clergyman, who although a tad sceptical at first, listened intently to our story. While we were sitting in his house, he phoned the police and asked to speak to the Sergeant who had attended last night, and was told he was currently off duty and to call back that evening.

At around 7 p.m. he called us at Kerry’s parents’ home, sounding shaken, telling us the Sergeant had verified our story, and that he was going to contact his diocesan Minister of Deliverance, Francis Wells, for advice.

A week passed, during which we heard nothing, and Kerry and I began to doubt our sanity, despite the fact that the two police officers had witnessed what we had witnessed. Then we received a phone call from Francis Wells, asking if he could come and see us at our house. He was insistent that both of us should be there.

We did some research on him, and learned that he was a highly respected clergyman, with particular interest in the paranormal, and came from an academic background. Both his parents were medics, and he had achieved a double first in psychology from Oxford. He seemed exactly the right person, with a practical mindset, to investigate the phenomena we had encountered, and Kerry and I felt reassured.

Kerry drove us to the house in my van, but refused to go in. Although it was the middle of the day, I was also too scared to go in alone. We waited outside, and after about twenty minutes, a bright red Alfa Romeo saloon pulled up, and out clambered a very good-looking man in his early thirties, dressed in a business suit, with a very pleasant and gentle demeanour.

Francis Wells was far from what we had been expecting – perhaps a priest in robes, holding a bell, book and candle, like something out of
The Exorcist
. He was so normal, so ordinary, and warm-hearted, instantly putting us at our ease and expressing his deepest sorrow at our loss. He asked if he could go inside and take a look at where the apparitions had appeared.

We agreed, although neither Kerry nor I would go further than the front room. We sat on the sofa, feeling very uncomfortable being back in the house, while he went upstairs. After what seemed an eternity, he came down and sat in a chair opposite us. Kerry found the strength to make us all a coffee and when she had handed out our cups, together with a plate of biscuits, he told us his findings, smiling benignly at us, as if to reassure me and my wife that we were not bonkers, and speaking in a soft, gentle voice.

He started by offering us prayers, and did not seem at all offended when we thanked him but told him that both of us had a problem with religion. He was totally understanding. ‘That is absolutely fine,’ he said. He sipped some coffee then continued. ‘Well, Geoff and Kerry, I’ve just been upstairs and all seems quiet, for now. I’ve been researching into the background of your home, and I’ve discovered something that may offer an explanation, however strange it might seem to you, for what has been happening. I’m assuming you both studied history as part of your curriculum at school?’

Yes, I told him, but it had never really grabbed me. Kerry, however, said it had been one of the few subjects she had loved.

The Minister of Deliverance nodded approvingly at her. ‘Do you remember the Great Plague? The bubonic plague?’

‘I remember a ditty we learned at school,’ Kerry said. ‘1665 no one left alive. 1666 London burned to sticks.’

The Minister smiled. ‘Indeed. But before that – three hundred years earlier – the bubonic plague started; it was called the Black Death. It wiped out over 30 per cent of our population. Towns and villages had plague burial pits. My team has discovered that this housing estate, where we are now, is on the site of an ancient plague burial ground. And the precise location of your house is over a pit where infant victims of the plague were buried.

He went on to tell us that he could not say whether it was the negative energy from all the young babies buried here that had caused the cot death of our baby son, Darren, or whether his death had for some reason triggered this eerie replay of parents bringing their dead infants here.

We put the house on the market, without ever telling prospective buyers about our experience. To our relief, the eventual purchasers were a middle-aged couple with grownup children. We now live thirty miles away and have never been back.