Hiding From the Light

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Right. Well. It’s not occupied, so they won’t mind you looking round it on your own. You don’t want me to go with you?’ He glanced up anxiously and she saw the relief in his eyes as she shook her head. He had summed her up as she walked through the door. He could always tell a serious buyer and Emma Dickson wasn’t a serious buyer. There was no point in trying too hard with this sale, especially as he was feeling so damn rotten.

She waited whilst he scribbled down some instructions for her, found and photocopied a local map, handed her the keys, then she was out in the street again.

She did not remember Manningtree at all. She stood outside the agent’s shop and stared round in delight. It was a pretty town, the centre consisting as far as she could see of little more than the narrow, busy main road in which she was standing with a couple of other streets crossing it at right angles. She squinted at the map in her hand. She was standing on the corner of Church Street. South Street ran parallel with it fifty yards or so along. All were hung with flower baskets – old houses and shops alike decorated with fuchsia and geraniums, lobelia and ivy. She pressed back against the wall as a car swept by and hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should have a cup of coffee somewhere before going on to see the house. She had left home without having any breakfast, and she had been on the road so long she was feeling quite weak. Besides, she was, she realised, suddenly a little apprehensive about finally going inside the house whose keys were clutched in her hand. The whole enterprise had acquired an emotional overload which had begun to alarm her.

She could see a coffee house from where she was standing outside an empty shop, its windows whitewashed, a For Sale notice hanging from the jettied storey above the front door. As she stood hesitating the door opened and a man came out. Talking hard and looking over his shoulder back into the shop he cannoned into her violently, nearly knocking her off her feet.

‘Oh my God, I’m sorry!’ He grabbed her arm and steadied her as she staggered into the gutter, the cottage keys flying out of her hand. ‘Oh shit! Let me get those. Have I hurt you? Come and sit down a minute.’

Before she knew it she had been drawn through the door into the empty shop and pushed into a folding canvas chair.

‘I’m OK, honestly.’ She had finally got her breath back enough to speak.

‘No you’re not, look at your foot!’

She looked down at her sandalled feet. Below her pink jeans her ankle looked a bit swollen and was already distinctly black. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks, honestly.’ She was overwhelmed and not a little embarrassed by his concern. ‘It’ll be fine.’

The man who was now kneeling at her feet was tall and wiry, probably like her in his mid-thirties. Dressed in blue jeans and a checked shirt he had short cropped dark hair and a long, rather mournful face. ‘It doesn’t look fine to me. I am a clot. I never look where I’m going. Colin, do something!’

Emma had not even realised there was someone else in the room. The man who now stood forward was shortish and solidly built with pepper-and-salt hair, perhaps in his mid-forties. He grinned at her peaceably.

‘My colleague is always flattening people and I constantly find myself picking them up!’ His voice had the unmistakable singsong of the Welsh hills. ‘Would you like a doctor, an ambulance, a bandage, a lawyer or a cup of coffee?’

Emma burst out laughing. ‘I’ll settle for a coffee. That is where I was heading when we bumped into each other.’

‘God, that’s tactful!’ The younger man straightened up. ‘Bumped into each other! I completely bulldozed you.’

‘You’re forgiven!’ Emma was rubbing her foot. ‘Much as I’m enjoying the sympathy this is not a bruise, you know. It’s actually dirt.’

‘Off my great clumping shoes.’ The younger man looked down at his feet ruefully. ‘This place is filthy.’

‘I’ll fetch us some coffee while Mark looks after you.’ The Welshman fished in his pocket for some change. ‘We have made an arrangement with the café next door. They will let us bring real cups across here and they have nice home-made cakes and buns.’ He winked.

‘Are you buying this shop?’ Emma looked round for the first time as he disappeared out into the street. The man she now knew as Mark shook his head. ‘God, no. In fact I gather the shop is almost unsaleable.’ There was another folding chair in the room beside the one in which Emma was seated, and two large metal cases of what looked like cameras and photographic equipment, a heavy coil of cable, two large canvas bags and a spotlight on a tripod. Uneven oak floorboards covered in dusty footmarks and heavily beamed walls and ceiling proclaimed the age of the building. In the far corner a broad flight of stairs led up out of sight. There was an ugly modern counter to one side of them, bare but for a couple of notebooks, two empty coffee cups – presumably from the obliging café next door – pen, light meter and clipboard.

‘You’re photographers?’ Emma waggled her foot experimentally.

‘Film. TV.’ Mark turned to his briefcase and pulled out a pack of Kleenex. He proffered it hopefully. ‘Will this help clean you up? Or there’s a loo upstairs.’

‘Actually I might go up and wash my hands.’ She pulled herself to her feet with a wince.

‘Straight up. You can’t miss it.’ He grinned. It was his lucky day. A beautiful woman, literally, falling at his feet!

Glancing into the upper room from the landing at the top of the stairs she saw that it was large and empty, the windows leaded and dusty. A bluebottle was beating against one of the panes and on the floor below the sill she could see the bodies of several others. She shivered. In spite of the frenzied buzzing of the fly there was a strange stillness in the room which was unnerving.

She found the cloakroom, cleaned off most of the dust, washed her hands and was making her way back towards the empty room when she heard someone walking across the floor towards the staircase. She paused in the doorway, looking round. ‘Mark?’

There was no answer. ‘Mark, are you there?’ The room was empty. The bluebottle was lying on its back on the window sill, spinning feebly in circles. She stepped cautiously into the room. ‘Hello? Is there anyone here?’

The silence was intense, as though someone was holding their breath, listening.

‘Mark? Colin?’ She stared round nervously. ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

There was no answer.

Retreating to the top of the stairs she glanced back towards the window and caught her breath in surprise. There was someone there, surely. A stooped figure, staring at her across the pile of boxes in the middle of the floor.

Welcome back.

The words seemed to hang in the air.

For a moment she couldn’t move, her eyes locked onto the pale, indistinct face, then a child shouted suddenly in the street below and the moment was over. The figure was gone – a mere trick of the light – the room was empty.

She felt a knot of fear tightening in her chest. Sternly she dismissed it. Hurrying downstairs she limped towards her chair and flung herself down in it, shaken. ‘You weren’t upstairs just now, were you?’

Mark glanced up from the notebook he was writing in. ‘No. Why?’

She shrugged. ‘I thought I heard someone up there.’ Cautiously she began to rub her ankle.

He scrutinised her face for a moment. ‘Really?’

She nodded. ‘It was a bit spooky, to be honest!’ She gave a small apologetic laugh. ‘It was probably my imagination. Did you say you were making a film here?’

Mark nodded. ‘A documentary.’

‘And what is so special about this place? I mean, I can see it’s very old and attractive, but presumably that’s not enough to warrant a film?’

Mark shook his head. ‘No. Well, as I think you might have guessed, it’s part of a series on haunted buildings.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘You weren’t thinking of buying it, were you?’ He nodded towards the keys lying next to her bag. The estate agent’s tag was large and obvious.

She shivered ostentatiously. ‘Good Lord, no. I was on my way to see a country cottage.’ She frowned uncertainly. ‘Perhaps I’m going mad, but I think I might have seen your ghost up there. A figure, by the window. Does that sound likely?’

Mark stared. ‘It’s possible. What did it look like?’

‘Sort of wan and transparent!’

He grinned. ‘Sounds fairly authentic. I’m jealous. I haven’t seen a thing yet.’

‘It could have been a trick of the light.’

‘True.’ He was watching her closely.

She raised an eyebrow. ‘So, who is this ghost?’ And quite suddenly she didn’t want to know. She quite desperately didn’t want to know. But it was too late. Mark was launching into his story.

‘OK, I’ll tell you the full sordid tale. This shop is so haunted it has been owned or leased by about a dozen different businesses in the last few years. No one stays long and now its reputation goes before it so it’s been on the market for three years.’

‘And you’re going to film the ghost?’ Without realising it Emma had wrapped her arms around herself tightly. She glanced up at the ceiling.