Hiding From the Light

‘That’s the general idea. We heard about it in a roundabout way through one of our scouts who had worked on House Detectives just up the road, and after a bit of research we felt it would fit our series really well. Ah, Colin, sustenance!’

The Welshman had appeared in the doorway with a tray. On it were three large cups of coffee and a plate of cakes. He slid the tray onto the counter. ‘If this project takes more than a day or two I’m going to want danger money for cake overload.’ He passed Emma the plate. ‘Please take the chocolate one because if you don’t I will and I mustn’t.’ He patted his stomach ruefully.

Laughing uneasily, Emma helped herself to a large sticky slice. ‘Anything to oblige.’ She glanced round the room. The atmosphere was better now. Normal. ‘Have you seen it, Colin?’

‘It?’

‘The ghost.’

‘Ah,’ Colin glanced at Mark. ‘No, not yet. And I’d be grateful if you didn’t spread it around why we’re here. We’ve told the café people we’re surveyors. Which I suppose, if one were being a little bit disingenuous, one could say was true. They know the story of course, and they’ll find out in the end why we’re here, but I don’t want every bored kid in town tapping on the windows and wailing at the locks the moment it gets dark if I can help it.’

‘Have you filmed ghosts before?’ In spite of the distraction of the chocolate cake, she couldn’t stop herself thinking about the silent upstairs room with its shadowy occupant.

‘Yup.’ Mark took a bite of coffee and walnut. ‘With mixed results and open to all sorts of questions but Col and I were pretty convinced we’d caught something. The last one was up in Lincolnshire.’

‘This is a difficult one.’ Colin sat down in the other chair. ‘The story involves this whole town. It’s a very emotive subject. This place is supposed to be haunted by several ghosts, amongst them a guy called Matthew Hopkins. He was Oliver Cromwell’s Witch-finder General. One of those all-time villains of history. You must have heard of him? There was a film about him.’

‘A bit before her time!’ Mark grinned. ‘It was a Michael Reeves film. 1968. Our hero was played by Vincent Price, who was fifty-seven years old at the time, although Matthew actually seems to have died before he was twenty-five.’ He sucked his breath in through his teeth. ‘Well, we all know about historical veracity in films. Perhaps we can do something to put some facts in place. There is enough horror in the truth here, from what I gather.’

‘I do remember the film.’ Emma frowned. She was feeling uncomfortable again, ever more aware of that upstairs room. ‘I must have seen it on TV. I don’t know if that was based on fact, but weren’t hundreds of poor old women burned at the stake?’ She shuddered.

‘Ah, well, no.’ Mark squatted down on the floor beside one of the bags and drew out a file of papers. ‘I’m still researching, but it seems that they weren’t burnt at all. They were hanged. And there weren’t hundreds of them. More like dozens.’

‘Mark is getting all evangelical about this one,’ Colin grinned, almost indulgently. ‘But that is good. We have to get the facts right. Then whatever story there is here will be all the stronger. Hopkins is supposed to have tortured some of his victims in this building – this shop was part of a much larger house originally. It belonged to the Phillips family and Mary Phillips, who worked with Matthew Hopkins, lived here at some point. She was a really nasty piece of work. She pricked the witches with a vicious spike to find the Devil’s mark.’

‘Oh, that’s awful.’ Emma stood up. ‘Is that her I saw upstairs?’ Suddenly she was shivering violently.

‘You saw something?’ Colin stared at her. ‘A psychic, eh? Bloody hell! And you’ve only been here two minutes! Well, perhaps we can use you to entice the ghosts out for us.’

‘I don’t think so!’ Emma shuddered. ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, it was my imagination.’

Mark grinned. ‘You’ve gone quite white. There’s nothing to be scared of – not in broad daylight.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘As you say it was probably a trick of the light. The trouble is, once stories like this one start going round they take off like wildfire, then everyone who sees a shadow thinks it’s a ghost, and then it’s hard to separate out the objective from the subjective from the downright lies. Although as Colin says, there seems to be so much round here that’s quite sinister, almost as though –’ He paused and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. There’s a sort of evil ambience about this place. Not just the shop, but this whole area.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Odd, when it’s all so pretty. Sorry. Take no notice. We’re going to be very objective about this, aren’t we, Col? We’re conducting interviews over the next week or so and of course we’ll be filming in here day and night. It’s a good opportunity while the shop is empty. They’re arranging yet another short let and once that’s under way we won’t be able to get in.’

Emma shook her head. ‘Well, you certainly have an intriguing job! I suppose this is for the telly?’

‘It certainly is.’ Mark nodded.

‘I shall look forward to seeing it.’ She hesitated. ‘It feels really spooky up there, whatever it was I saw.’

Mark and Colin exchanged glances. ‘I think so,’ Mark said quietly.

‘I try not to.’ Colin grinned affably. ‘I don’t want my hand shaking while I’m filming.’ He paused, his head on one side. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy being in the film? You could regale us with what you saw just now.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘OK.’ He grinned. ‘Worth a try. Here, have some more cake.’

Laughing, she shook her head. ‘I must go.’ Gathering up her bag and map, she picked up the bunch of keys. ‘Thank you for your hospitality. Perhaps if I buy my cottage I’ll see you around?’

Mark shrugged. ‘Maybe. Good luck with the viewing. I hope it is all you dreamed of.’ His gaze followed her to the door. Turning to raise a hand in farewell as she closed it behind her she didn’t see the wistful appreciation in his eyes or hear Colin’s resigned chuckle. ‘Give up, Mark! She’s gone.’

7 (#ulink_5847a8f8-378f-5918-b657-e8ab76ef66a1)

Emma remembered Mark’s final words as she drew up outside the cottage and switched off the car engine. Dozing in the sun behind its curtain of roses it was pink-washed with black beams. Half the roof was thatched, the other half roofed in old lichen-covered tiles and it stood sideways to the lane at its junction with a smaller, narrower road heading off into the country, set well back behind a wall of overgrown garden. She climbed out of the car and for a moment stood still, just staring. It was enchanting.

The gate was broken, the once-black paint peeling off in brittle flakes, looking too frail to touch. She was reaching out to push it open when she became conscious suddenly that someone was watching her. She turned round. A young woman was standing a hundred yards away holding a bicycle, staring at Emma with undisguised hostility. As she saw Emma spot her, she climbed onto the bike and pedalled off. Emma shrugged and turned back to the gate. If someone else had wanted to buy the cottage they presumably had had time by now to do something about it. So why should they resent someone looking at the place? Cautiously pushing the gate back on its hinges she let herself into the garden. The flowerbeds were alive with bees and butterflies, a mosaic of bright scented colour. It was the cottage of her childhood memories, her fantasies, of the dream she only hazily recalled. The woman in the lane was already forgotten. Taking a step forward, she stopped again. It was strange. Although as far as she knew she had never set foot inside the gate, she did seem to know it all so well. She knew where each flowerbed lay, beneath the tangle of untended shrubs and weeds, she knew where the pump handle was, to the side of the front door, she remembered the medlar tree and the mulberry and the blackthorn and the pear in the hedge, the apples in the back garden and the circular beds separated with large round lumps of stone and flint.

Shaking her head she sniffed and she realised suddenly to her astonishment that she was crying. Brushing her cheek with the back of her hand she took a few slow paces towards the door. Only then did she realise that she had been so eager to climb out of the car and look at the house that she had left the keys on the passenger seat. Retracing her steps, she found them. There were six on the bunch. Two front door keys, a back door key and three shed keys. Selecting the most likely with a shaking hand, she inserted it into the lock. It clicked back easily and she found herself pushing the door open. But she already knew, without having set foot inside, that she was going to buy this house, whatever the cost, financially or emotionally. She couldn’t live without it.

In the excitement of the moment she did not give Piers a thought.

The hall was dark. It smelled of rich, sun-warmed wood and dust. She stepped over the pile of circulars and junk mail on the mat and stood, holding her breath.

Welcome home, Emma.

The voice in her head was quiet, but clear. The same voice that she had heard in the shop, surely, but this time it wasn’t frightening. It was warm. Enticing. It enfolded her.

She smiled and took a step forward.

I have waited a long time for you to come, my dear.

She frowned. And in spite of herself she shivered. It was her imagination, of course it was, but just for a moment it sounded as though the voice came from outside herself. She glanced round nervously. It was Mark and Colin’s fault, with all their talk of ghosts. How silly. There was no one there. No one at all.

This is your house now, Emma. Yours and mine. We’re going to live here together, Emma. You’ll be happy here, Emma.

The voice was inside her head again, almost as though it were part of her. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them, the voice had gone.

‘Is there anyone there?’

Of course there wasn’t. How could there be? She was just being foolish.

There were two downstairs living rooms and a largish kitchen, all heavily beamed. The narrow oak staircase led up from the hall to a landing off which there were three bedrooms, one of which, overlooking the front garden and the lane, was by far the nicest and instantly ear-marked by Emma as her own, and a small bathroom which looked as though it had last been modernised forty years ago. The whole place was dusty and shabby, but it exuded a wonderful feeling of peace and happiness. Upstairs the rooms smelled of flowers. It felt like home.

It is home, Emma!

Again, the strange voice in her head. Seductive. Gentle. Insistent. Her friend.

‘It is, isn’t it!’ Emma smiled as she discovered she had spoken out loud. ‘You’re right, whoever you are. This is home!’

She spent the whole afternoon at the cottage wandering round, sitting in first one room then another, exploring the garden, poking around in the outbuildings, totally and completely happy. The gardens were, if she were completely honest with herself, all that she had ever wanted without even knowing that she harboured any such longing at all: sprawling, untidy, packed with flowers and herbs, begging for someone to come and work on them and love them and coax them back into shape. As she stood at the rear of the cottage, surveying the scene, she could feel every fibre of her being aching to get to work, to plunge her hands into the soil, to pick the few remaining roses and bury her face in the soft damask petals. This place had been a nursery. It had been a business. It would be a way of life to whoever bought it. It could be a herb nursery again. It could be a business again, under her ownership.

It was as she glanced at her watch and realised that she would have to leave to catch the agent before he closed that the panic started and the image of the young woman who had glared at her in the lane returned with full force. That woman did not want her to buy the cottage. Why?

Will Fortingale was just about to go home. His secretary had already left and he was tidying away the papers on his desk when Emma opened the door and came in. He smiled at her wearily. ‘What did you think?’

‘I love it.’ She put the keys down on the desk.

‘You do?’ His eyes brightened perceptibly. ‘Of course, it’s been empty for a long time. It needs a lot doing to it. The last owner ran the nursery but they didn’t live in the house. They’ve got a place up in Bradfield. I think they let the house from time to time to holiday makers, but otherwise it’s been empty as you probably realised.’ He paused, sizing her up with a quick glance from beneath his eyelashes. Re-assessing her. Well-heeled, but no fool. ‘They would probably take a lower offer. It’s been on the market a while.’