The Ghost Hunters (48 page)

This is what I read:

We were sitting beside one another now, at my desk, surrounded by piles of unsolicited film scripts – the sort that are poorly bound and arrive in scruffy envelopes. The book before us was more interesting than any of these. I stared, puzzled by the text. ‘This appears to foretell that the Rectory will burn …’ I trailed off. The rest suggested that under the ruins would be found the bones of a murdered person – the nun perhaps? The idea would certainly corroborate Marianne Foyster’s suspicion that the nun’s remains were buried somewhere in the Rectory grounds. But still, the message made little sense. ‘It’s almost a year old.’

Observing my confusion, Price nodded and said quickly, ‘Precisely!’ Then he raised his eyebrows in question. ‘So?’

‘So … what?’ I demanded.

‘So, surely
now
you agree I am duty bound to reconsider the matter? In light of what has happened?’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘What
has
happened?’

His mouth fell open with an expression of incredulity. ‘You mean you haven’t heard? You don’t know?’

‘Know
what
, Harry?’

‘Sarah …’ He turned a further few pages of the book until he came to a black-and-white image of the Rectory. ‘This photograph was taken just last week.’

I felt the shudder of my own alarm.

‘You understand now?’ he whispered. ‘The prophecy has already been fulfilled. Borley Rectory burned down two weeks ago. The fire started over the hall, at exactly the place this entity, “Sunex Amures”, had foretold and at the time prophesied.’

The Dark Woman will return.

Through short breaths I asked Price whether anyone was harmed.

‘Thankfully, no,’ he replied. ‘The Rectory was empty when it happened. And yet …’ His eyes misted over and I imagined him standing on the lawn of the Rectory looking up at the flames that licked its turrets and leapt from its windows.

‘And yet?’

‘The locals who watched it burn swore they saw rushing figures amid the smoke and flames.’

Note

1
‘The Haunting of Borley Rectory. Private and Confidential Report’.

‘Now then,’ said Price as he laid his hand on my arm, ‘you said just a moment ago, before Sidney left us, that you had something important to tell me, something about the case. What was it?’

The muscles in my shoulders tensed as an image of Marianne Foyster’s troubled face watching me from the recesses of the main hall at Borley Rectory came into my mind and I thought of her sinister warning:
After the losses you will suffer, after the fire, after the proof that will be found – the Dark Woman will return.

‘Her,’ I said at last. ‘It’s all about her, Harry. The Dark Woman. The nun. Who
she
is, what happened to her.’

It was clear to me now that Marianne Foyster was right: beneath the veneer of fantastical events at that place lurked a quiet human agony crying out for release. The force of it was bitter and malevolent; and if Marianne was right, if the spirit of the nun brought a curse, an execration, upon those who deceived others, then I would need my sharpest faculties about me.

‘What more do we know of her?’ I asked.

‘The legend of the nun is the most compelling aspect of the case,’ said Price, ‘and you’ll be relieved to hear that I am quickly
coming to the opinion that it is more than a legend. We have now uncovered many more witnesses to her haunting. By our estimation, she has been seen by no fewer than twenty people in the last fifty years. Twenty, Sarah! Most of those people are either gravely unhappy, unwell or now dead. The weight of the evidence convinced Glanville to look into the matter. His family arranged an experiment, an attempt to communicate with her spirit.’

‘Go on,’ I said slowly.

‘Using the old planchette he retrieved from the attic of his home, Sidney and his family conducted a seance in the library of the Rectory. On this occasion, as you can see here’ – he pointed to the book – ‘words, dates, drawings and phrases spelt out meant nothing to any of the individuals at the time. But among all of this there was, I am amazed to say, a message.’ He turned another page. ‘A message that purportedly came from the spirit of the dead nun herself.’

‘Well, what did it say?’ I asked, my heartbeat racing now.

‘Here,’ said Price, turning the book towards me. ‘See for yourself.’

This is the script he showed me:

Who is there? What is your name? Marie Lairre.

How old were you when you passed over? 19.

Were you a novice? Yes.

Why did you pass over? (No reply.)

Where did you hear Mass? (Indistinct.)

Will you please spell each letter? B-o-r-l-e-y.

Have you a message? Chant Light Mass.

Do you want it yourself? Yes.

Why? I am unha … (Three letters indistinct.)

Were you murdered? Yes.

When? 1667.

How? Stran … (Last letters indistinct.)

Were you strangled? Yes.

Will our Mass be sufficient? No.

What Mass do you want? Requiem.

Where did you come from? Havre.

Are you French? Yes.

What was the name of your nunnery or convent? Bure.

Do you want a burial as well as Mass? Yes.

Do you wish to leave Borley? Yes.

Are your own past actions the cause of your being unable to leave? Yes. What was that action? Death.

What shall we do to help? Light Mass Prayers. Get a priest.

Can Reverend Henning help you? Yes.

Did you write the messages on the wall at Borley? Yes.

Do you want the Mass on any special day? Yes.

Which month? June.

Which day? 13.

Can you tell us why you want the Mass on that day? (Indistinct.)

Please repeat carefully. My murder.
¹

‘So you see,’ said Price, studying my face as this information sank in, ‘a name was revealed.’

‘Marie Lairre,’ I breathed. Then I turned to look at my old employer. His heavy brow was creased into a frown in a way that made me wish him younger. ‘Harry, this is remarkable. Such detail.’

‘Yes. On the whole, I don’t know quite what to make of it.’

But I did know; because ever since Glanville had told me about the French dictionary that had appeared next to the cold spot on the landing outside the Blue Room, my mind had been drawing together the clues. I showed Price the floor plans I had torn from the book. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘When laid on top of each other the cold spot on the landing of the first floor correlates with the area in the cellar beneath and the place where you first found the older bricks, the remains of some earlier building, in the earth. Do you remember?’

‘Yes.’

‘And at the same time, before we went upstairs, Vernon Wall’s foot crashed through a well cover nearby.’

‘I remember. I was slow to help get him out,’ said Price with a grin. His eyes drifted, studying every detail of my office: the film posters on the wall, the piles of letters on my desk, invitations to film premieres and fashion shows. Here were clues to my new life, about which he knew so little. I wondered then if I had become as much a mystery to him as he had been to me.

‘So you see,’ I continued, ‘that well must sit underneath the
cold spot on the landing, two floors above it. You remarked upon it yourself.’

His eyes widened with the memory. ‘Yes, I did, didn’t I? You’re theorising that the cold spot and the well are connected.’

‘No, not theorising; I know! Harry, these planchette writings confirm exactly what Marianne Foyster told me she could sense: that the nun was French, was brought to Borley and was murdered. According to these writings, that’s exactly what happened: she was brought by someone important, someone who loved her, from a convent at Le Havre in France to a house that once stood on the Rectory site in Borley. And there she was betrayed, deceived, murdered. Look,’ I pointed at the page, ‘the word is explicit – “strangled” – as is the date: 13th of June 1667. This is it.’ I looked up at him. ‘This is what we’ve been looking for!’

‘What is?’ he asked. The look on his face hovered somewhere between envy and admiration.

‘A clue – she wants us to find her remains and lay her to rest with a requiem Mass, Harry. “Mass, light, prayers.” Everything we need to know was written on those walls. Don’t you see? It’s all in this book,’ I said earnestly.

He drew nearer and rested his hand gently on my arm as I leafed through the book, stopping at the relevant pages. ‘It all fits – the wall writings, the plauchette messages, the cold spot over the landinh, the prophecy – all of it.’

Price raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re saying the clues were there for us from the first time we ever set foot in that house?’

‘Yes,’ I said urgently, ‘and the bricks you noticed protruding from the earth? They could be the remains of Borley Manor, Harry – the manor the Smiths told us about, the manor mentioned
here in the planchette writings. The manor that was the residence of—’

‘The Waldegrave family,’ finished Price, wide-eyed. ‘Good God, Sarah, you realise what this could mean?’

I nodded. ‘That a member of the Waldegrave family murdered the nun, Marie Lairre. Harry, that’s it!’

I thought I could see admiration in his eyes as they skimmed over my face. ‘My goodness, look how far you have come,’ he said with gentle appreciation. ‘I taught you well.’

‘I taught myself in the end, didn’t I? I had to.’

He nodded and looked down. ‘Though I think perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves. ‘Those wall writings were written by Marianne Foyster herself, or her husband.’

‘It’s possible they wrote some of them,’ I said, ‘but I don’t believe they wrote them all. I saw one, right next to me, which had not been there before.’ A thought struck me. ‘Perhaps Marianne was channelling the messages psychically without knowing it. That’s possible, isn’t it? Marianne told me years ago she felt certain the nun’s bones were buried somewhere on the Rectory site.’

‘So?’

‘So,’ I said earnestly, ‘this could be our opportunity to find them. Perhaps we’re
supposed
to find them! Perhaps—’

He didn’t allow me to finish my sentence. ‘And show the world that we have faith in the reliability of planchette data? You know I have my reservations about the evidential merits of automatic writing, Sarah. It would hardly reflect well on my reputation to be seen suddenly championing its application.’

I glared at him. ‘Forget about your precious reputation for a moment, Harry! Until now you have ignored me every step of the way on this investigation. You haven’t seen me in
years! After all this time, I think I have earned the right to be trusted.’

He nodded but said nothing and I felt anger colouring my face.

‘Harry Price, you really are unbelievable. It was
you
who came here today asking for my help.’

‘All right,’ he said, holding his hands up in protest, ‘all right.’

‘
No
!’ I cried, ‘It’s
not
all right! You have no idea, no idea at all, what I went through for you, how much I sacrificed, the other people I had to give up.’ I gasped for air. ‘If I’m doing this, I’m doing it for me! Understood?’

‘Very well,’ he said softly. ‘What are you proposing?’

‘That we dig,’ I said simply. ‘Gather a team of men and excavate the ruins.’

‘But that could take months! The cellars will be full of debris. It won’t be the easiest of tasks to clear it, especially if war comes. Essex would be right in the middle of any enemy flight path. The site is huge. Where would we begin?’

‘Where we’ve been told to begin. Look,’ I said, pointing to a photograph of a segment of wall writing in the book. ‘We interpreted this message as reading: MARIANNE AT GET HELP ENTANT BOTTOM ME. There is no doubt that the first word is Marianne. But compare the clarity of these letters to the scribbles underneath. They’re barely legible. And first interpretation makes no sense whatsoever. You can see here, on the left, the words “GET HELP”. That’s fine. But over here, on the left, further down, there is the letter “W”. With me so far?’

Price leaned in, nodded and said, ‘Go on.’

‘From here the pencil seems to have curved upwards and then down. Do you see, Harry? It doesn’t leave the wall.’

‘Yes.’