The Ghosts of Sleath (12 page)

T
HE RESTAURANT ROOM
of the Black Boar Inn was not very crowded that evening. In fact, apart from David Ash, who was waiting for the arrival of Grace Lockwood, there were only two other diners. This couple, who perhaps were in their sixties, were celebrating their wedding anniversary, the man having ordered a bottle of the inn’s best champagne and invited the landlord’s wife, who also appeared to be the restaurant’s
maître d’
, to join him in a toast to his long marriage. Rosemary Ginty happily obliged, but Ash was aware that even when she raised her glass to the couple she was surreptitiously looking in his direction.

The dining room, with its soft wall lights, heavily beamed ceiling and inglenook fireplace, had a comfortably intimate ambience; the round tables were small, designed so that diners sat close to each other, and short candles on tiny beds of flowers glowed at their centres. Most of the leaded windows overlooked the inn’s rear garden and courtyard, and as the twilight dimmed towards darkness outside lights came into play, sending starlings nested in the trees and eaves of the building itself screeching and fluttering through the air.

Preoccupied with the frantic though brief display, Ash suddenly became aware of someone standing by the table. He turned from the window and looked up at the plump, attractive
face of the landlord’s wife. Her expression of frank scrutiny quickly changed to one of courteous interest.

‘Didn’t mean to startle you, Mr Ash.’ Her smile was pleasant enough, but hardly masked the unease in her eyes. ‘I wondered if you’d like another drink from the bar while you’re waiting.’ Her hands were clasped in front of a stomach that was protesting against the corset she wore beneath her dark green dress. The candleglow lent warm highlights to the short double string of pearls she wore and deepened her lipstick to crimson.

‘Another vodka would be fine.’

‘Just ice, isn’t it?’

‘No, it’s just vodka.’

‘Oh yes. By the way, Mr Ginty wondered if you’d decided how long you’ll be staying with us yet.’

Ash guessed that the landlord hadn’t wondered any such thing and that his wife was merely trying to strike up a conversation. Maybe she was just curious because he was a stranger; or maybe the villagers already suspected why he was there in Sleath. He’d visited three locals since his arrival, so word might have got around.

‘Have you, Mr Ash?’

‘Uh, sorry. I was miles away. No, I haven’t, Mrs Ginty. As I told your husband, it could be a couple of days, it might be a week.’

‘I see. You’re interested in this area, are you?’ Her smile was a little too fixed, as she patted her elaborately coiffured blonde (dyed) hair.

‘It’s a lovely village.’

She waited, but he only returned her smile.

‘Yes,’ she said on realizing he was not going to give a direct answer to her question. ‘Yes, Sleath is beautiful. And very quiet, Mr Ash. Well, I expect your company will be here soon, so I’ll get that drink for you.’

‘Thank you,’ he said and looked out of the window again when she left the table.

The starlings had settled once more, probably for the night
now, and the lawns and flowerbeds were bathed in a bright blaze from the outdoor lights. The shadows, however, had deepened.

As he waited for Grace Lockwood, Ash reflected on his interview with the fanner earlier. Sam Gunstone’s land backed onto the village, but it had taken a good five minutes along a winding road in Grace’s car to reach the farmhouse. Gunstone, a rotund, grizzled man in his sixties whose red, veined face reflected a lifetime of open air and inclement weather, had little patience for the investigator’s questions, even when Grace explained the reason for their visit.
Bollocks
, had been Gunstone’s response.
All bollocks and cow dung. Whoever ‘eard of ghostie ‘aystacks? No such thing
. Ash reminded him that it was he, Gunstone, who had observed it.
I saw somethin
, the farmer had retorted,
but tweren’t no bloody ghost thing. Memry playin tricks, that was all it was, one o’them whatcher-me-callits? - dega views. Unnerstand what I’m sayin?

Ash certainly understood. Gunstone was a pragmatic, no-nonsense man of the soil, who might accept ancient myths and legends, but would never believe in first-hand phenomena. What was it the vicar had said? A healthy mind will always seek a rationale. It seemed that time had given the fanner second thoughts, even though his earlier account to Reverend Lock-wood had been quite vivid.

He turned from the window and folded his arms on the table, gazing down into his empty vodka glass, and wondering why this sudden plethora of sightings around this particular area.

Something made him look up from the glass towards the door that led to the bar, the restaurant’s only entrance. Three seconds later Grace Lockwood walked into the dining room.

Ash rose from the table to greet her and she came towards him, unsmiling. She wore a fine silk print dress with long thin sleeves, the dominant colour maroon, and this evening her hair was loose and curling inwards around her shoulders. The gash on her forehead was faint under a layer of make-up, but it served to remind Ash of the incident in Ellen Preddle’s kitchen
that afternoon when, according to Grace, a saucer had skimmed across the room at her from a high shelf with no apparent cause. Because of the bereaved mother’s near-hysterical state at the time, Ash had been unable to investigate properly, but now he wondered if poltergeist activity might also be involved in these hauntings.

‘David, I just had the strangest feeling.’

He pulled out a chair for her, and her expression remained serious as she sat down. She watched him take his own seat.

‘It was like today at the church,’ she said, ‘a few moments before we actually met.’

‘I know,’ he told her, placing a hand over hers as if to reassure her that everything was perfectly all right. ‘I felt it too.’

She regarded him quizzically.

‘Almost like a small and painless electric shock, right? I had the same sensation. I knew you were here before you came through the door.’

‘Yes, that was it’ She leaned closer when he took his hand away, shaking her head slowly. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening.’

‘Grace, have you ever had any psychic experiences before?’

She sat straight again, startled by the question. ‘I don’t think so. Perhaps little things, like knowing who was at the other end of the telephone before I’d answered it. But isn’t that quite common?’

‘It’s not
that
common, but it happens. Often it’s only logical guesswork - you were expecting a call from someone in particular, or no one else would phone at that time - but sometimes it can be a genuine sensing. Anything else, any other instances?’

She thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think - wait a minute: when I was a child my parents took me to Canterbury Cathedral. We went for a walk in the town afterwards and somehow - don’t ask me how, I can’t remember - we got separated. My mother and father were frantic when they couldn’t find me after an hour’s searching, but then
I
found
them
. I was only seven years old and
didn’t know Canterbury at all, but I’m certain I wasn’t frightened wandering about alone. In fact, I was enjoying myself looking at all the shops and when I’d had enough I simply went to a street corner where I knew - I really knew, I remember that - my parents would be. They were there talking to a policeman and I just walked up and slipped my hand into my mother’s as if nothing had happened.’

‘You’re sure you didn’t come upon them by accident? It was a long time ago.’

‘It’s funny, but I still recall knowing exactly where my parents were the moment I decided I’d had enough for the day. I suppose in all those years I’ve never really considered it might have been through some kind of psychic ability. Certainly nothing like it has happened since.’

‘It could have been nothing more than natural instinct - all kids possess a certain amount of that. But then we have to ask ourselves, exactly what we mean by “instinct”.’

‘Good evening, Grace.’

They both looked up in surprise at the landlord’s wife, who stood over them, a small tumbler in her hand.

‘Hello, Rosemary,’ Grace said as the glass was placed beside the empty one in front of Ash.

‘Your vodka, Mr Ash.’ Rosemary Ginty took the empty glass away. ‘Would you like an
apéritif
too, Grace? Oh dear, have you hurt yourself?’

Grace touched her forehead lightly as though she had just remembered the wound there. ‘Nothing serious. Falling crockery, that’s all.’

Rosemary rolled her eyes in mock resignation. ‘I have my clumsy days too, dear. More than once Tom’s banned me from the kitchen, says I’m breaking all the profits.’

Grace dutifully smiled back at her. ‘I think I’ll just have some of your house wine. Dry-white isn’t it?’

‘Not too dry, but dry enough.’ She looked from face to face as if expecting to join in the conversation, but when neither Grace nor Ash offered encouragement she said, ‘Right, why
don’t you look at the menu while I bring your wine?’ She turned away, stopping to enquire how her other guests were ‘getting along’ before disappearing into the bar next door.

‘It could be that you’re susceptible to certain mental energies,’ Ash said now that the landlady was out of earshot.

‘What does that mean?’ There was a half-smile on Grace’s face.

‘You’re in tune with certain minds.’

‘Yours, for instance?’

‘It’s possible. You might be a latent psychic.’

She gave a short laugh. ‘I’ve heard of latent homosexuals, but latent psychics? I doubt it very much.’

‘People tend to resist such ideas.’

She was puzzled by the conviction in his voice. ‘Why should they do that?’

He shrugged. ‘They have their reasons, even if they’re not aware of them themselves at the time.’

‘You’ve dealt with such people?’

His smile was humourless. ‘You could say that. How’s the Reverend this evening, by the way?’

She was aware of the digression, but decided not to press him further. There was something enigmatic about this man and she concluded that direct questions would only be met by guarded responses if they concerned anything too personal to him. Perhaps it was merely his professionalism - he was here to conduct an investigation on her father’s behalf and self-revelation was not part of that brief. Odd how close she felt to him though, despite only having met him for the first time that day. Could it be part of this psychic thing he’d mentioned? Could their minds somehow be ‘in tune’, was that what he was getting at? She pushed the thoughts aside for the moment.

‘Father hasn’t been well for some time,’ she said. ‘His health seems to have deteriorated rapidly over the past year or so - even before Mother passed away, in fact. She used to write and tell me how worried she was about him. Ironic that she should be the one to …’ She stopped, shaking her head in
sadness. ‘Naturally her death made him worse, and now these … these hauntings. He’s become quite distressed by them.’ Again she leaned forward, her hands clasped together on the edge of the table. ‘David, what
is
happening here in Sleath?’

Before he had a chance to answer, the landlord’s wife placed a glass of wine in front of Grace. ‘That’s what we’d all like to know, my dear,’ she said, not bothering to lower her voice. The elderly couple at the table across the room looked up with interest. ‘There’s all this silly talk about ghosts and things, everyone’s walking about with long faces, and it’s hard to have a civil conversation with anyone these days.’ She waved a despairing hand around the room. ‘You can see for yourself how trade has suffered. Normally the restaurant would be almost full on a lovely evening like this. And then there’s that awful business this afternoon.’

Her neck stiffened and she gave a little shake of her head. ‘Can you imagine it, Grace? Ralph Cauldwell nearly bludgeoning that poor boy to death.’

‘My father is with Danny Marsh’s mother right now, although I don’t know what comfort he can offer her. Do the police know why Cauldwell did such a terrible thing?’

Now Rosemary Ginty did lower her voice as she leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘I heard young Danny did something to Cauldwell’s daughter. That’s why Ruth isn’t here at work this evening.’

‘What do you mean, Rosemary?’ asked Grace. ‘What exactly did he do?’

‘You know, Grace, no need to spell it out. I always thought the boy was harmless enough - a bit dim, p’raps, but no real bad in him. Never thought he’d do anything like that.’

‘He tried to rape her?’ Ash said helpfully.

Rosemary Ginty gave him a stiff sideways look. ‘I’m told that’s what he’ll be charged with - if he ever recovers, that is.’

‘How bad is he?’ asked Grace.

‘Bad as you can get with your skull bashed in.’ She
shuddered, her clasped hands squirming against her plump stomach. ‘Cauldwell scraped off most of the boy’s face with one of those plane things, which hardly helped matters. Dear God, it might be a blessing if Danny does pass away now he’s got no face to speak of and a brain that’s probably mashed potatoes. Well then, have you had a chance to look at the menu yet?’

He had been wrong, Ash realized as he sipped the armagnac. Grace Lockwood was a beautiful woman. Maybe it was the candleglow, the wine, the brandy, maybe the flaws - and they had been few - had disappeared with familiarity. Familiarity? He’d known her for less than a day. What was going on here, Ash, what the hell was going on? Her eyes, watching him now, were soft in the low light, yet they seemed to penetrate his own as if seeking more knowledge of him than he was prepared to offer. She held her coffee cup in slender fingers and smiled across the table at him.

‘You’re lost in thought,’ she said, and added meaningfully but with good humour, ‘again.’

He apologized, returning the smile. ‘There are so many different aspects to this case it’s difficult to know what to focus on.’

‘Oh,
that’s
what you were thinking about.’

His smile broadened to a grin. ‘Not really. I was wondering why you weren’t married.’