The Ghosts of Sleath (17 page)

G
RACE LOCKWOOD’S EYES
snapped open.

The single bedsheet that covered her was twisted and rumpled; one of her legs was exposed, bent at the knee so that the sheet lay across her hip. She stared at the ceiling, her mind a tumult of thoughts and images. The dream … it had been so real, so vivid; yet it had been so confused.

She pushed the clammy covering away from her breasts and lay there in the darkness, calming her breathing, trying to make some sense of the after-images that continued to tumble through her mind; but as she concentrated, so the images scattered - scattered like dead leaves in a fierce wind.

She remembered children’s faces, their eyes wide and pleading, tiny hands clawing the air as if beseeching … someone. Not her, though. She was merely a witness, somehow an observer to someone else’s nightmare. She remembered a fire so bright that in the dream she had shielded her eyes with her hands. She remembered another storm -
no, no, this had not been a storm at all, but a cascade of human flesh
.

Grace shuddered, even though the visions were rapidly fading, their impact lessened, their reality undermined by her own reviving senses. But a memory remained while these others dwindled to vague impressions.

She, the observer, was watching David Ash. Beyond him,
by a group of trees, stood a small girl dressed in white. Incongruously, the girl wore only one white sock and she, too, was watching David.

The child was smiling. But her smile was not pleasant.

Grace wondered how she knew the little girl’s name was Juliet.

S
HE KNEW IT WAS
David before she even opened the door. She knew before he’d even rung the bell. Before she had heard the car draw up outside.

She knew it was him because she had been expecting him. At least that was what she told herself as she went to the door.

‘David …’

He looked gaunt standing there on the doorstep. No, not gaunt. Grace almost smiled as she reconsidered. There was a bleakness to his stare, a darkness around his eyes. David Ash looked haunted.

‘Can I talk to you and your father?’ he asked.

My God, she thought, that bleakness was even in his voice. ‘Of course. Father’s in the garden.’

She stood aside to allow him through, but he entered and stopped beside her. Now she saw confusion in his eyes. And something else, something locked away but not quite hidden. She sensed it was fear.

‘Have you heard the news in the village?’

Dread seeped through her, long cold fingers that dragged at her spirit, and suddenly, irrationally, she wanted to walk away from him, to close her ears against whatever he was about to tell her. Something more was wrong in Sleath and she did not want to hear of it, because she shared the fear that was in
David Ash. She could not comprehend it, but neither could she deny it.

‘I got back from the community hall a little while ago,’ she told him, ‘but I didn’t hear of anything while I was there.’

‘It’s only just breaking. The landlord at the Black Boar told me a gamekeeper was killed in the woods last night. He was shot through the heart by an arrow from a crossbow.’

‘Oh dear God,’ she said and Ash reached out and held her arm to steady her. ‘Not Jack Buckler, surely?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘He was such a gentle man, so good with the animals …’

‘That was the name the landlord was told. The police contacted Ginty to see if any strangers were in the bar last night, or anyone behaving suspiciously. He told me because he had to let them know I was the only guest staying at the inn. No doubt they’ll want a word with me at some stage.’

‘I don’t understand, David. Yesterday someone was almost beaten to death, a few weeks ago a boy was drowned in his bath - and now this.’

‘I need to know what else has happened here. Not just recently, but over the past few years.’

‘But there’s no link, there’s nothing to connect any of these things.’

‘Only Sleath itself,’ he said.

‘How could -’

He cut her off. ‘I’ve no idea. But sometimes a place - it could even be a room, or a house - can acquire an atmosphere that’s conducive to evil.’

‘That doesn’t make sense.’

‘Believe me, it happens. Will you tell your father I’m here?’

‘I’ll take you to him.’ She hesitated though, taking a half-step towards him instead, so that their bodies were close. ‘You look … tired. Are you all right?’

‘I slept badly, that’s all.’

And did you dream, David? she asked silently. Was it his
dream she’d glimpsed? ‘Who’s Juliet?’ she said, this time voicing the question.

He appeared stunned. His eyes searched hers and, for a moment, the fear she thought she had sensed earlier shed its chains and ran rampant. It was controlled within seconds and his gaze became cold, isolated.

‘How did you find out about her?’ His tone was so emotionless that Grace felt a shiver run through her.

‘I dreamt about you last night,’ she said to him. ‘It was confused, I couldn’t make any sense of it. I can’t even remember much, but I do know I saw a little girl watching you. She never spoke, she didn’t do anything, but somehow I knew her name was Juliet. Perhaps you spoke to her, or called out her name - I just don’t remember.’

That cold stare transfixed her for several more moments before he lowered his head and said: ‘Juliet was my sister. She drowned when she was eleven years old.’

It came as a further shock to Grace. Yes, she had seen water, someone struggling; she had almost felt the water choking her own lungs. But the girl had nothing to do with that. Like Grace, she had only been there in the dream as an observer, a witness.

She found her voice. ‘I’m sorry, David. I had no idea …’

‘No, how could you?’

She was startled by his bitterness. When he said nothing more Grace turned away and walked down the hall towards the rear of the house.

‘Grace.’

She stopped and looked back.

‘Look, I’m sorry too,’ he said. ‘It’s just that, well … things have happened that I’d rather forget.’

‘I sense them, David. I don’t know how, but I can feel some of the misery you’ve been through. Last night I think I saw into your own dream. Your nightmare, I should say.’

‘Did you …’ He looked beyond her. ‘Did you see all of it?’

‘It was too muddled, there was too much happening. Falling leaves, children’s faces …’ She shook her head in
exasperation. ‘The girl is the only clear thing I remember. She was dressed in white. And there was something else, something I can’t quite recall … Oh yes. Yes. The girl was wearing only one sock. Silly to remember something like that.’

But Ash didn’t appear to think so. He was staring at her so intensely she felt like turning away again, turning away and walking out into the bright sunshine, for never before had the house seemed so cheerless, not even on the day her mother had been buried.

Ash spoke. ‘Last night you told me you weren’t psychic. I think you’re wrong.’

‘Surely I’d be aware if I were,’ she said quickly.

‘It might be a gift - some call it a curse - that’s lain dormant in you for most of your life. Maybe it was something you had when you were a kid, then lost it over the years. Sometimes adult things crowd out certain perceptions. Or maybe you, yourself, denied the faculty because it frightened you. Believe me, I’m someone who knows the truth of it.’

‘You’re psychic yourself.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Sometimes.’

‘I didn’t think it was a sometimes thing.’

‘Events - traumas - can trigger it off.’

‘And you think that’s happening with me?’

‘I can’t be sure. But yesterday, when I first met you at the church, something happened between us.’

‘I felt as if I’d been hit by a thunderbolt. Are you suggesting that you and I have some kind of psychic link?’ She recalled the experience before she’d entered the restaurant last night and a similar feeling only minutes ago before he’d arrived at the house, a ‘knowing’ of his presence; neither one could be described as a thunderbolt, but they were peculiar sensations, all the same.

Ash had followed her down the hallway so that now he was close to her. She laid a hand against his chest. ‘You did dream of Juliet, didn’t you?’ she said.

He nodded. ‘And other things.’

‘A storm of some kind? Children’s faces?’

‘Yes.’ He had no desire to describe all those dream-visions in detail.

‘What does it all mean, David? Why should I react in such a way to you?’

He touched her fingers against his chest. ‘It isn’t me, Grace. It’s the village itself. Something’s going on here that I don’t understand yet. These incidents - the drowning of Simon Preddle, the boy who was almost beaten to death yesterday, and now the gamekeeper who was killed last night - those are physical manifestations. The metaphysical manifestations are the ghosts seen by your father, Ellen Preddle, Ruth Cauldwell. And by myself.’

‘You?’

‘I saw - I think I saw - the ghost of a little boy last night.’

Grace caught her breath. ‘Simon Preddle?’ she said.

Ash shook his head. ‘This kid was no more than six or seven years old. I saw him yesterday, too, just before I arrived in Sleath.’

Her fingers entwined in his. Her astonishment gave way to incredulity, and this in turn gave way to concern, all in fleeting seconds.

‘I’m not sure he wasn’t just part of my nightmare,’ Ash said as if to convince himself. ‘But he seemed so real for a few moments.’

‘The non-believer convinced.’

They turned together at the sound of this other voice. Reverend Lockwood stood in the doorway at the end of the hall, light from the garden beyond silhouetting his stooped figure. One arm leaned against the doorframe as if for support.

‘Father?’ Grace went to him, a hand stretched before her as if afraid he might fall.

The clergyman straightened at her approach. ‘I’m all right, dear. Perhaps it’s too early for gardening, even at this hour. If you would fetch me a glass of water, though?’

‘Yes, but you find a chair and rest.’

‘I will. Will you join me outside, Mr Ash?’

Ash squinted against the glare from the open door as he went forward, and it was only when he was three or four feet away from the vicar that he realized how unwell the man looked; his condition, which was hardly robust on their first meeting, appeared to have deteriorated badly overnight.

Lockwood noticed the surprise in the investigator’s eyes and gave a weary smile. ‘You seem to have had a bad night yourself, Mr Ash.’

The remark further surprised Ash. Did he look as bad as the vicar? Somehow he doubted it, for this man was
physically
ill, anxiety for his village adding its extra weight.

‘It was too warm last night to sleep well,’ he said.

‘Ah, if only that really was the cause. For myself I found the night quite cool. There are chairs on the terrace - shall we sit there?’

Ash followed the vicar outside and Lockwood took a seat on a broad wooden chair with wide armrests, while he pulled a plainer chair away from the terrace table. The terrace itself was a modest affair with a low lichen-coated balustrade and four steps leading down into the garden. From there he could see the gazebo where he and Grace had talked only yesterday, beyond that the woodland and the old Lockwood Estate. No sooner had they settled than Grace had joined them, carrying a glass of water in one hand and a battered straw hat of the kind a cricket umpire might wear in the other. She handed both to her father.

‘Must I wear this thing?’ the vicar complained.

‘No, you can collapse with sunstroke if you prefer.’ Grace sat at the table, facing Ash; she gave him a quick smile before saying to her father, ‘I want you to rest today, and later I think we’ll get Dr Stapley to have a look at you.’

‘You will do no such thing.’

Frail as he appeared, the vicar’s objection was forceful.

‘But, Father -’

‘I said no. All I need is a little rest, which is what the doctor would prescribe. Rest and a sedative or two. I’m afraid that’s
all our medical profession is worthy of nowadays.’ He regarded the investigator. ‘Have you any results for us, Mr Ash?’

‘It’s much too soon,’ Ash replied. ‘But certainly something is happening here in Sleath that isn’t normal.’

‘And what precisely is that?’

The investigator caught Grace’s anxious glance. He understood she wouldn’t want her father upset unnecessarily in his fragile condition, but it was impossible to evade such a direct question.

‘The hauntings, for a start,’ he said.

‘For a start?’ The older man turned his head slightly to one side so that he was watching the investigator from the corners of his eyes.

‘The other incidents.’

‘The boy who was almost killed by young Ruth’s father?’

‘Yes.’

‘And …?’

Ash looked apologetically at Grace. ‘A gamekeeper was shot dead last night.’

‘Jack Buckler? Not dear old Jack Buckler?’

‘I’m afraid so. The police are certain it was a poacher who killed him.’

The vicar was shaking his head, more in sorrow than disbelief. ‘Where was he murdered?’ he said eventually in a voice so low Ash had to lean forward to catch the words.

‘Somewhere on the Lockwood Estate. It happened some time last night.’

‘The Lockwood Estate,’ the vicar intoned. ‘So it continues.’

Ash regarded him with interest. ‘It continues …?’ he said as a prompt.

Lockwood shot a glance at his daughter, his lean body stiffening. ‘The tragedies in Sleath,’ he said to Ash. ‘They continue to plague us.’

Ash was puzzled by the look that had passed between Lockwood and his daughter. He opened his mouth to speak, but the other man cut in.

‘A little while ago I overheard you tell my daughter you’d seen the spirit of a small boy: can you explain that?’

‘I’d had a nightmare. Possibly I was still half-asleep.’

‘Ah, and the dream went on. Are you trying to convince us of that possibility, Mr Ash, or yourself?”

It was a question the investigator could not answer. Instead he changed the subject. ‘I need to do some research into the history of Sleath. In particular, I’d like to learn more about your own ancestors.’ This second comment was prompted by the look exchanged between father and daughter moments earlier.

‘The Lockwoods?’ Grace was more surprised than indignant. ‘Surely you don’t think our family has anything to do with the hauntings?’ Her smile, lips parted, indicated the absurdity of the idea.

‘I gather that generations of Lockwoods have played an important part in the community’s history. I’d like to know as much as I can about them.’

Reverend Lockwood shook his head wearily. ‘I urge you not to delve into matters long forgotten, Mr Ash. They can have no bearing on what is happening in Sleath today.’

Ash was not so sure, for many hauntings - or ‘psychic replays’ as he liked to term them - had much to do with past events.

The vicar’s irritation at his lack of response was barely concealed. ‘There’s no point in dredging up the ancient deeds and misdeeds of my family. Small villages like ours tend to harbour grudges from generation to generation and I tell you no good will come of such revelations.’

‘I’ve told you before, any researches I carry out will be confidential. The Institute reports directly to its clients, and no one else.’

Lockwood’s expression suggested he was far from satisfied. He rose unsteadily to his feet, bringing the conversation to an end.

‘Do I have your permission to look through the parish records?’ Ash persisted.

The older man’s pale eyes were unblinking. ‘As far as the church chest is concerned, no, you do not. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to prevent you from looking elsewhere for information.’