The Ghosts of Sleath (26 page)

A
SH GRABBED HOLD
of Grace’s arm as she made for the door. She spun round, alarm, fear, bewilderment in her eyes.

‘Wait,’ he said over his own confusion.

‘Father …’ She tried to pull away, but he held her firm.

‘Let me go first.’ He drew her aside, roughly, because she resisted at first, and then headed for the door himself. Grace followed close behind.

Ash took the steps two at a time, but paused at the top, realizing he had no idea which was the vicar’s room. Another wailing cry told him.

The door was closed and for a moment he thought it might be locked, so stiff was its handle. He took a tighter grip, using both hands, and the door opened. He rushed in and came up short, taken aback by what he saw.

Although the curtains were closed, there was enough light to make out the figure of the Reverend Lockwood on the floor of the bedroom, his back pushed into a corner, bedsheets clutched to his chest. He was staring at the opposite corner, abject horror dragging at his lower jaw so that his mouth was agape; saliva glistened on his thin lips, a stream drooling onto his chin. His white hair was wild around his face and the pupils of his eyes were so wide and black the pale irises around them
had almost disappeared. The vicar was shaking as if in a fit and he gazed only at the empty corner.

Ash felt Grace enter the room behind him. Then her hand was grasping his shoulder as she looked past him at her father.

‘Keep away from me!’

The shout erupted from the vicar so suddenly that they both gave a start. They realized that the warning was not directed at them, but at whatever false vision lay in that empty corner of the bedroom.

‘Daddy!’ Grace cried, unaware that it was a term she had not used since she was a child. She tried to step around the investigator, but once more Ash held her back. Struggling to free herself, she called out to her father again. Never had she seen him look so old and frail, so deteriorated; even his months of ill health had not prepared her for this. She gasped when his frightened gaze wandered to her and Ash felt her sag against him.

The Reverend’s voice was as decrepit as his appearance. ‘Leave here, Grace. Go from this room, this house … leave now … please …’ The words grew softer, then failed him completely as the effort of speaking became too much. His attention slowly returned to the empty corner, and he moaned, the sound degenerating to a long sigh that ended in a wretched sob. His trembling arthritic hands lifted the bedsheets and his forehead sank into them, his face hidden from view.

‘Forgive me … please forgive me …’ he pleaded.

They thought these faint words were directed at whatever he imagined was in that corner until he whispered Grace’s name again.

‘Forgive me, Grace … it’s you … it’s you they …’

Ash caught her as she swooned and began to fall. He held her to his chest as his own legs buckled and he sank to one knee, his arms around her waist and shoulders, her face pressed against him.

He heard the laughter then, a low, mocking sound that seemed to come from the empty corner.

I
T WAS GOOD TO BE OUT
in the open air, sultry though it was. Ash hurried away from the Lodge House, relieved to be beyond its cooler yet no less suffocating confines. It concerned him that he had left Grace to tend her distraught father on her own, but there was no other choice: Ash had to look at those church records, or at least, those that hadn’t been too badly damaged. Besides, once she had recovered from her shock, Grace had insisted that he go to St Giles’ alone.

By the time he reached his car the back of his shirt was damp with sweat and his step had already lost its initial briskness. He quickly switched on the engine, and then the air cooler. He sat there for a few moments before driving off, brooding on what had occurred inside the house. Just what manner of demon had presented itself to the Reverend Lockwood in the corner of that shaded bedroom? If he, Ash, had not heard that cruel, mocking laughter emanating from the other side of the room, then he would have concluded that the vicar, in his distressed state, had been hallucinating.

He reached over to the back seat for his discarded jacket and rummaged in the pockets for cigarettes. He lit one and tossed the match out onto the dusty road.

Demon
was the wrong word - maybe he was becoming overwrought himself. Demons were the stuff of cheap novels and
even cheaper movies. Spirit manifestation was better. Yes, he could accept that, and he could accept the malignity of such an entity, too. He touched the thin scar on his cheek as he exhaled cigarette smoke through the open window.

But why had Lockwood begged his daughter’s forgiveness? What the hell had he done to her? Ash remembered what had happened between himself and Grace in the study before they had heard the scream from upstairs. Somehow they had been able to enter each other’s inner consciousness, their minds had joined in some kind of extrasensory embrace, a telepathic melding of perceptions and sensibilities. It had been a powerful and almost overwhelming experience, and he knew he had given away secrets long repressed in the deeper levels of his consciousness. Yet his own delving had been blocked by some kind of barrier, one that was instigated by something within her subconscious. Now he wondered if there was a connection between Lockwood’s plea for forgiveness and whatever it was in Grace’s psyche that blanked truths not only from others but from Grace herself.

And was this part of the Reverend Lockwood’s secret? Why
was
the man so afraid? Why had he attempted to destroy the church records? Just what the fuck
was
going on here in Sleath?

Angrily Ash engaged gear and jerked the wheel so that the car shot over to the other side of the narrow road. He quickly executed a three-point turn, swinging round over the grass verge so that the car was pointing back towards the village. He glanced towards the Lodge House one last time before putting his foot down and heading down the hill towards St Giles’.

Within seconds he was at the church and he had to resist the urge to drive straight past and keep going until he was out of the village, beyond the hills, back in the grubby city where lunatics and thugs were the only threat. Instead he pulled over to the lychgate and stopped the car.

The cigarette was half smoked and his anger contained before he climbed out and went through the cool portal where long
ago coffins were rested before being taken into the church itself. Only when he was at the porch door did he drop the butt and grind it into the dirt with his foot.

He surveyed the old, leaning headstones of the graveyard and wondered why death did not always mean conclusion.

The familiar coldness clung to him as he went through the porch and opened the inner door to the church. Inside, he paused once again, immediately aware that he was not alone in the sepulchral gloom. There was no sound, no voice and no movement other than his own as he turned his head, searching for whoever shared the quietness with him. Unlike earlier when he and Grace had arrived at St Giles’ there were no murmurings to warn him; yet he was certain there was someone else there in the church - his senses were too cruelly stretched to lie to him.

It was almost with relief that he detected the faint sound.

With a feeling of
déjà vu
he walked quietly down the side aisle, listening intently with every step. The sound grew louder, although it was still soft. It had a kind of cadence to it, as if … as if someone were humming a tune. And it was coming from the small chapel where they had found the slumped body of Reverend Lockwood.

Much of his nervousness left him when the sound took on a more tuneful and less threatening quality. He became aware of other noises as he drew closer to the source - the riffling of papers, a muffled cough, the scraping of something across the stone floor.

‘Is that yourself, David?’

The brogue was unmistakable.

‘Phelan.’

‘Come and join me, there’s a lot to talk about.’

Ash leaned on a pew and allowed himself to breathe again before going on. ‘You scared the hell out of me,’ he said, crossing the nave.

‘Ah, I didn’t mean to do that. As a matter of fact, I thought I’d find you still here.’ The humming resumed.

Ash stood at the entrance to the side chapel where the stone effigy shared space with the tiny altar and credence table. Seamus Phelan had found a small plain chair from somewhere and was sitting on it surrounded by sheaves of yellowing papers and aged books. Among them were old parchments, most of which were crumpled or torn. Earlier Ash had not had time to realize the damage dealt to these old documents, but now he saw just how destructive the vicar had been. The books, themselves, were also in poor condition, either through wear or vandalism; loose leaves spilled from them and one or two had ripped covers. He bent down to pick up a creased sheet of vellum, on which handwritten text was faded and barely legible.

‘I’d be grateful if you didn’t touch anything, David. I’ve spent some time piecing things together here.’

Although the banter was still in the Irishman’s voice, Ash realized there was also a degree of tenseness. He took a closer look at Phelan and saw there was a grimness to his smile.

‘I was surprised you weren’t here at the church when I arrived,’ Phelan said as though unaware of the investigator’s scrutiny. ‘After all, that was part of the plan, wasn’t it? We’d make separate searches?’

‘I didn’t know you’d be back so quickly.’

‘The microfiles at the library soon told me all I needed to know. I wanted to consult with you before I went on to the archives.’ That grimness had travelled to his eyes. ‘It might be worse than I feared, David. Much worse. But tell me first, who’s the scoundrel responsible for this vandalism?’ He indicated the mess on the floor.

Ash quickly explained how he and Grace had found the vicar semi-conscious in the chapel, the church records in disarray around him.

‘So it was the Reverend Lockwood himself,’ said Phelan thoughtfully when Ash had finished. ‘Now why would a man of the cloth, the very pillar of the community, wish to destroy the day-to-day history of his parish?’

‘Because he didn’t like the story it told?’

Phelan regarded him with interest. ‘A story of his own ancestors,’ he added.

Ash knelt before the paper debris. ‘You’ve had time to examine all this?’ Ignoring the previous warning he picked up a torn piece of parchment.

Phelan made a weary scoffing sound. ‘It would take a week to go through this lot, much more to study them properly. But I have already found something of particular interest.’ He leaned forward and carefully picked up a bound volume which, although obviously ancient, appeared to be in better condition than most of the other tomes it had laid amongst. ‘I found this fellow at the bottom of the chest under a lot of other stuff. Fortunately our pernicious vicar hadn’t quite got to it before his collapse.’

Carefully balancing the book, with its cracked leather cover and gilt-edged vellum leaves, on his knees, the Irishman opened it up. ‘Much of it is indecipherable, and even more reads like gobbledygook. I’m afraid its author was no scholar, judging by his use of Latin. But what I can discern makes fascinating reading. This fellow might be of interest to you, by the way.’ He half-turned, nodding his head towards the stone knight lying on the plinth behind him. ‘Sir Gareth over there was the first Lockwood to come to Sleath. I don’t suppose it was much of a place back in the thirteenth century, but the village and all the land around it was given to the man as a reward for his services to the Fifth Crusade. D’you know your history, David?’

‘I can just about tell you what happened yesterday.’

Phelan raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m sure you’re having fun with me. Well, no matter. It seems Sir Gareth took part in the Christian army’s somewhat illogical attempt to conquer Egypt - I suppose they were all full of their own glory after the Fourth Crusade had led to the capture of Constantinople a dozen or so years earlier and the setting up of the Latin Empire of the East.’ He gave a bemused shake of his head. ‘Now you’d think our knight would have returned a chastened man after defeat, but not a bit of it. From what I can make of these somewhat perplexing notes here he came back from the war with some
strange - and to him, exciting - ideas in his head. Unfortunately for the villages and the landsmen hereabouts, these were not very Christian ideas.’

‘There’s evidence in the book?’

Phelan smiled. ‘There’s some, but I’ve had to read between the lines here and there, venerable though those lines may be. He was certainly an enthusiast, I’ll say that for him. Unfortunately again, that enthusiasm - no, let’s call it what it was: an unhealthy obsession - was for the dark practices.’

‘But his descendants became ministers of the church.’

‘Yes, very odd, isn’t it? I presume it made their power over the villagers absolute.’

A breeze that had found its way into the old building lifted the edges of the papers by Phelan’s feet. He took the cane that had been leaning against the back of his chair and laid it across them.

‘Y’see, several passages appear to be direct quotations from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Through your own knowledge of the occult I’m thinking you’ll have some idea of what that particular potboiler was designed for.’

‘It was meant to be read to the dying to give their subconscious-self control over their spirit when they passed on.’

‘Well, a certain control over the weird and wonderful experiences to come, shall we say? Quite a prospect, don’t you think?’

‘I imagine Sir Gareth was pretty pissed off when he died and discovered it was all hokum,’ Ash replied drily.

‘Ah, but is it? What d’you suppose ghosts, shades, wraiths, revenants, spirits - whatever you’d care to call the poor divils - are all about? Aren’t they the souls of those who have not been allowed, or indeed allowed themselves, to pass on to the greater glory? Perhaps Sir Gareth had discovered the secret for himself and sought to share that knowledge or even to govern with it.’ He stopped and gave Ash a smile that was resigned rather than weary. ‘But I can see you’re not convinced, David. Ever the cynic, eh?’

‘D’you blame me? It’s all a bit absurd, isn’t it?’

‘No more so than ghosts terrorizing a little village in the Chilterns. But let’s not get into that particular debate for the moment - we’ve a lot more digging to do before we can draw any conclusions. Still an’ all, I think Sir Gareth’s journal here is a good start, much better than we could have hoped.’ He slowly turned other pages, lost in thought for a while.

Ash rose from his kneeling position and walked over to the recumbent effigy. He ran his fingers along the cracked stone and felt its coldness seep into his own flesh. Alarmed how swiftly the chill spread through his whole body, he snatched his hand away.

The sound of Phelan closing the book and muttering under his breath distracted him.

‘Did you say something?’ Ash asked, unconsciously rubbing at his arm to bring back some warmth to it.

‘Thinking aloud, m’boy, one of the more irritating habits of the aged.’ He hummed a tune for a few moments, drumming his fingers on the thick cover of the book on his lap as he did so. Then he fixed Ash with eyes that held no humour and now precious little weariness. ‘As I said, there’s much work to be done and we’ve not much time.’

‘I can help you sift through some of this lot. Maybe I can read the later records, those not written in any obscure language.’

‘I’ve a feeling it’s the earlier stuff that will provide us with the answers we’re looking for, though I’ll scan through everything to be sure nothing’s missed.’

‘But what good will answers do?’ Ash said with something approaching exasperation.

‘Well now, they might help us understand what’s happening in Sleath, why these revenants are frightening the folk. And then perhaps we can convince those involved - the living, I’m meaning - to stop whatever practices are attracting these unnatural forces.’

‘Wait a minute - you think there are people here responsible for the hauntings?’

‘I believe so, although if it’s consciously or subconsciously
on their part I haven’t a clue. Y’see I doubt these forces have the power to present themselves without some kind of encouragement, or even invitation. In most cases it’s either spiritualists or receptive minds that draw such entities, but in this case - well, who knows? It’ll be interesting to find out.’

Phelan shook his head as if saddened and began to rise, the effort, apparently, not easy for him. He turned to place the book carefully on the chair, then flexed his short legs, working the stiffness from them. ‘There’s a peculiar iciness to this church, don’t you think?’ he remarked casually as he peered up at the walls and into the chapel’s vaulted ceiling. ‘I feel there’s evil in Sleath and it’s been here for quite some time. In fact, I’m prepared to believe it’s been here for centuries.’

‘Why would you think that?’ Ash demanded.

Phelan looked quizzically at the investigator. ‘D’you not sense it yourself? D’you not
feel
the badness in this place? Good Lord, it’s almost palpable, you can almost touch it. Oh, it’s here all right, and so it has been for longer than either one of us has trod this earth, and I’ve a notion its power waxes and wanes depending on certain factors. What they might be, I’ve no idea at present, but as our American friends say, “We’re in a learning process here”.’