The Secret of Crickley Hall

•

Gabe stood by the window, a plastic mug of coffee in one hand, a sandwich with a great bite taken out of it in the other. Laid out on a desk behind him were the design plans for the prototype of the first marine current turbine, a smaller detailed sketch showing the turbine's rotor and drive chain on top of this. He had declined the invitation from his three colleagues, who were employed by the parent company, Seapower, to join them for lunch, because he knew discussions would continue while they were eating and he needed to take time out to assess all the information he'd absorbed during the morning.

The Seapower project was important globally, because the system would be able to use the limitless energy of the sea currents. A submerged machine could generate a maximum of three hundred kilowatts in a current of only five and a half knots, which eventually could be linked with a land power grid by a marine cable that would emerge from the base of the pile and lie out of sight on the seabed. Environmentally the submerged turbines would have very little impact and they would cause no pollution whatsoever; they would be installed beneath the sea at places with high tidal current velocities. Locations like Hollow Bay, Gabe thought.

He took another bite from the sandwich that the team's one and only secretary had nipped out to buy him before she went to lunch herself. Hollow Bay.

Gabe continued to gaze out at the dismal view of the backs of office blocks, the rain adding its own dreariness to the grey scene. The sun had broken through the clouds earlier that day and its warmth had hinted at an Indian summer, but that hadn't lasted very long—the clouds had closed up and the endless drizzle had resumed. His thoughts meandered from the harbour village to the house to which he had brought his family.

Crickley Hall was a seriously weird place, no question. And although Eve seemed in better shape yesterday, he knew her nerves were already frazzled. And more trauma could tip her over the edge.

'Fuck it,' he said aloud.

Suddenly his mind was made up. They were moving out of Crickley Hall. They would find somewhere smaller, a cottage maybe, anywhere that was warm and without puddles that had no cause, or strange noises in the night, or doors that kept opening by themselves. Although he had no belief in ghosts, there was definitely something eerie about the old house. Neither he, nor his family, needed it; Loren especially was becoming more and more frightened, though for her mother's sake she managed to hide it well. Hell, even the mutt was scared.

He felt a weight lift from his shoulders and he smiled to himself. Yeah, he'd drop by the realtor's office some time tomorrow.

24: THE EVACUEES' TALE

Percy Judd sat at the kitchen table as he had three days ago when the Caleighs had first moved into Crickley Hall. His hands dangled the flat cap between his knees, his storm coat hung on a hook beside the kitchen door. For such an elderly man his faded blue eyes were watchful and alert. Like last time, Eve was brewing him a cup of tea.

Cally had been sent to her room to play or read one of her picture books; Eve had questions she wished to put to Percy, but not in front of her daughter.

He shifted awkwardly in his seat. 'Don't mean to disturb yer none, missus. Been workin' down at the church all mornin', but I'm finished there fer today.'

'It's okay, Percy, you're not disturbing me. Besides, you can't work outside in this weather—that's why I called you in. But call me Eve, won't you? You already know my husband's name is Gabe.'

'If it's all the same to yer, I'll stick to mister and missus. It's only proper. Yer my employers, y'see?'

'Well, it seems you come with the house,' Eve agreed. 'But you don't mind us calling you Percy, do you?'

He chuckled and shook his head. 'That'd be fine, Missus Caleigh.'

She smiled at him. There was something she really liked about this old man, even though she hardly knew him. He seemed simple in a good way, a special way, without complications.

'Actually,' she said, 'I'm sort of glad to see you today.'

He looked at her quizzically.

'There are things I'd like to ask about Crickley Hall.' She paused. Had his face momentarily darkened when she said that?

'There's a lot to do in the garden this time of year,' he said, as if he couldn't spare the time for idle chat.

'Really? I thought with winter on the way there wouldn't be much for you to do out there, especially in the rain.'

'Oh no. In some ways this is the most important part of the year. Have to get things ready for the cold weather.'

She brought his tea over as he enthused on what was obviously his favourite topic. Percy placed his cap on the table and took the proffered cup.

'Not that yer got much of a garden, apart from the lawn, but what there is still needs tendin'. There's prunin' to be done an' the tyin' back of the plants, mulch to be spread over the beds to save 'em from the frost. Then there's the trimmin' of the trees, cuttin' out the dead wood. Then yer apples want collectin' an' the fallen ones picked up—yer got a coupla healthy apple trees roun' back. Make lovely jam with 'em, yer could, if yer've a mind to. There's more plantin' of bulbs needed—daffodils, tulips, snowdrops—which've gotta go in now if they're gonna come through by next year's spring.'

He blew into his cup to cool the steaming liquid.

'Then there's yer logs yer'll want choppin',' he resumed. 'I've already put a fair amount down in the boiler room, but if yer gonna' keep all yer fires burnin', bedrooms an' all—there's a particular damp cold about Crickley Hall that radiators can't best—yer'll soon be runnin' out of wood to burn.'

'We don't expect you to do that, Percy.' Eve took a chair opposite him. 'Gabe will be only too willing to chop wood. In fact, he'll enjoy the exercise.'

'It's choppin' the right wood that's important. Some'll only make a lot of smoke, others yer won't even be able to light. Yer gotta know the right kind to axe.'

Eve nodded. 'You can show him which are better to use.' She leaned her elbows on the table. 'How long have you worked at Crickley Hall, Percy?' she asked, looking directly into his eyes as if the question was of some importance.

'Most of my life, missus. Since I were twelve years old. Never got on with school, an' in them days 't'weren't unusual for a lad to start work at that age. Not down in these parts, anyway.'

He sipped the hot tea and smacked his thin lips in appreciation. 'I likes it strong,' he remarked appreciatively. 'Proper cuppa tea, this.'

Eve was still staggered that Percy, who must be in his late seventies if not early eighties, had spent so many years in the one job. She quickly gathered her thoughts.

'You said you look after St Mark's cemetery too?' she asked.

'The graveyard, yers. I make sure it's kept neat an' tidy, 'specially roun' the back, even though it don't get many visitors.'

'That's where the children are buried, isn't it? My husband saw the small graves.'

Percy fell silent. He looked down into his tea, the cup in one hand, saucer in the other and held under the cup as if to catch any drips.

Eve persisted. 'The children came from here, didn't they? They were all staying at Crickley Hall when they drowned, weren't they?'

Percy's face became grim, set like stone. His eyes pierced Eve's suspiciously and she instinctively pulled back an inch in surprise.

But those old faded eyes soon softened again; now they were full of sadness.

'The poor little mites were sent down to Devon durin' the last world war. 1943 they come here. Late summer. People in London thought the Blitz were over, didn't wanna send their kids away, split up the families, like. But the authorities knew better. They knew the bombin' weren't over yet and they wanted the young 'uns out of harm's way. The evacuees that came to Crickley Hall had no choice anyway—they was all orphans, y'see.'

He fell into silence once more and a distant look came into his eyes. Eve thought tears might appear in them, but the old man was made of sterner stuff. His eyes refocused on her.

'What makes yer ask about the kiddies, Missus Caleigh?'

There was more than just curiosity in the question: Percy seemed anxious.

'I… I just thought it was so sad,' she answered. 'All those poor children… drowned. I wanted to know more about them.'

What else could she tell Percy? That she—and Cally, Cally saw them too—had seen the children's ghosts? That they were haunting Crickley Hall? Surely he would only scoff, think her mad. Eve could imagine the word spreading round the harbour village—there was a madwoman living up at the Hall, thought the place was haunted. It seemed a close-set community, one where all kinds of rumour might start. It had been bad enough that morning in the shop, asking for a psychic's card, the odd looks that the shopkeeper and her husband had given her when she took it from them. The locals would think her eccentric, at the least. And who could blame them.

He drank more tea, then seemed to come to a decision. 'If yer wants to hear about it, then all right, I'll tell yer.'

And so Percy Judd told Eve the heartbreaking story of the evacuees from London who had come to Crickley Hall in the late summer of 1943.

•

'A course the Blitz were over by then,' Percy told Eve, 'but as I says, the gov'mint knew better. They knew the Germans weren't finished with their bombings yet an' the gov'mint wanted to get as many children outa London as possible. Lotta parents wouldn't hear of it though—they thought the worst was gone—but kiddies in orphanages had no say in the matter. Those that came to Crickley Hall shoulda got away from the city long afore, but I's'pose the authorities had trouble findin' 'ccommodation for 'em until this place come up.

'Gov'mint were right, en' all. Krauts sent over them doodlebugs in '44—"buzz bombs" some people called 'em, but V-1s was their proper name—an' they created havoc in London an' along the Kent flypath. But our eleven evacuees came afore that happened, much good it did 'em in the long run.

'There were six boys an' five girls, only two of them related: Gerald and Brenda Prosser were brother and sister. The eldest boy were twelve years old, though he were big for his age an' looked older too. His name were Maurice Stafford, a gawky unlikable lad, an' the eldest girl, eleven years old, were Susan Trainer. She played mother to 'em all, but especially to Stefan Rosenbaum, who were only five, the youngest of the lot. He were from Poland and didn't understand much English.

'Poor little mites, they was,' said Percy. 'All they come with was the clothes on their backs, cardboard suitcases with a change of clothes, I suppose, an' their gas-mask boxes hangin' roun' their necks. They looked happy enough when they arrived, chatterin' an' excited as they got off the bus that'd brought 'em from the station. Didn't last long though, that happiness.'

Eve listened intently as the story went on…

Percy told her that the children's guardians and teachers, who were also from London and new to the area themselves, were brother and sister, Augustus and Magda Cribben.

He was in his early forties, a cold hard man, a religious zealot and disciplinarian, who ruled the children with a rod of iron. His sister, a plain, stone-faced woman of thirty-one—'Looked older,' remarked Percy, 'looked much older than her years'—was equally harsh with the children.

Augustus Cribben, whose middle name was Theophilus, had been deputy headmaster of a London school for boys that had been closed because most of its pupils had been evacuated to other parts of the country. Magda had been one of his teachers. Other than that, very little else was known about the couple and the only person in Hollow Bay that Cribben engaged with was the vicar of St Mark's, the Reverend Horace Rossbridger, who admired the guardian for his dedication to the Lord and the firm control he had over the children in his charge.

Percy, who as a lad was the gardener-cum-handyman to Crickley Hall, even then taking care of the house and grounds whether it was occupied or not, had tried to befriend the children when his daily duties took him inside the house, but Cribben had soon forbidden any fraternization between Percy and the children lest they be distracted from their own duties. That hadn't prevented Percy from observing, though.

Within a matter of days the children had changed from happy, vociferous youngsters into wary and quiet creatures, afraid to do anything that might incur Cribben's or Magda's wrath. They had come to live in a regime so strict that it seemed to have broken their spirit. Punishment for anything Cribben deemed misbehaviour was severe, Percy learned. Their daily diet was porridge and a cup of water for breakfast, mincemeat, boiled potatoes and cabbage for lunch, cheese and an apple for their supper, all of which might have been fine, if limited, but Percy had seen for himself the meagre portions each child received. While they were not conspicuously undernourished, they soon lost any ounce of fat they might have had before, and their robustness was drained from them.

Inside the house they had to go about in bare or stockinged feet despite the damp coldness that always clung to the rooms no matter what the season. As well as saving on shoe leather, this also avoided 'excessive' noise. Augustus Cribben apparently suffered mightily from migraine headaches.

Nor were the evacuees allowed to play with toys that were sent by the various charitable organizations that regularly supplied orphanages and schools in poorer areas with clothes and books as well as playthings. Toys were put away in the attic storeroom next to the children's dormitory, almost as if their proximity was meant to torment—or test—the boys and girls.

'We found them,' Eve informed Percy, glancing at the old-fashioned spinning top that sat between them near the edge of the kitchen table. 'Gabe discovered it in the attic. As you said—hidden away in the storeroom next to the dormitory. My God, they've been there all those years.'

Percy studied the colourful toy, and there was sorrow in his gaze. A moment or two passed before he said, 'S'been no proper family here since to take any interest. No kiddies who might've had fun with things like that.' He sighed, and to Eve he seemed to shrink a little. The old man went on with his story.

'I remember seein' all the evacuees together once, marchin' down to St Mark's for Sunday service. September, it were, and the weather had turned cold. They was in pairs, holdin' hands like, the little 'uns trottin' along to keep up, girls in brown berets, the boys wearin' overcoats either too small or too large, none fittin' properly. All of 'em had gas masks hangin' across their chests, even though there were little chance of gas bombs in Hollow Bay. I still recall how quiet they was, not like ordinary kids who'd be laughin' an' chattin', some of 'em skippin' mebbe. Like they was when they first arrived. No, they was all silent as the grave, sort of… sort of…' He searched for the right word. ' .. cowed, if yer know my meanin'. Like they was afraid to enjoy themselves.'

Percy shook his head sadly at the memory. 'Cribben were up front, leadin' 'em, Magda fetchin' up the rear, watchin' out for any mischief the kids might get up to along the way. Maurice Stafford marched with her at the back, a tall boy, like I say, who looked older than he were. For some reason he was treated different from the others by the Cribbens. A tattle-tell, he were, I found out later. Told on the other kids if they did anythin' wrong. A big kid all right, but skinny, awkward-lookin'. I remember him grinnin' at me as he passed by, cocky with it, a great black gap in his grin where a tooth should've been. He weren't liked by the other kiddies an' there were a reason for that. Teacher's pet, he were. An' sly, very sly. A sneak. I found out about that when Nancy came to teach at Crickley Hall'

He came to a stop again and Eve wondered if he were picturing this Nancy in his mind. He seemed far away, lost to another time.

'Tell me about her,' Eve gently prompted and the old gardener collected himself, clearing his throat, stiffening his shoulders.

'Nancy—Linnet were her surname, Linnet like the little bird—Nancy were nineteen years of age. Pretty thing, she were, delicate like, but strong in herself, if yer knows my meanin'…'

Like the eleven evacuees at Crickley Hall, Nancy Linnet was also an orphan who had been raised in an institutional home in the suburbs of London. She had left the home at the age of sixteen to dedicate her life to teaching and aspiring to educate underprivileged children, especially those who were orphans like herself. She had jumped at the opportunity to teach the orphans at Hollow Bay.

'Nancy had ringlets that shone like bright copper down to her shoulders,' Percy told Eve, 'an' merry hazel eyes, an' she had freckles on her cheeks that made her look like a twelve-year-old. Well, we sort of took a shine to one another, me an' Nancy. Oh, I knew she were too good fer me an' I used to think the only reason I stood a chance with her were 'cause she had a withered arm. That didn't spoil her beauty fer me, not one little bit, but other lads in them days… Well, there were a different attitude towards disfigurement then, only by the time the war were over an' all them pilots an' sailors an' soldiers come back with burnt-off faces an' missin' limbs, people started to get used to such things. Not entirely, though—some people nowadays still can't abide other people's afflictions, but I s'pose there's no changin' that.'

He gave a mournful shake of his head. 'Anyway, we struck up a friendship—a courtship yer might say—an' through her I got to know more about what was goin' on in Crickley Hall, things I hadn't seen fer myself…'

The children's routine was stringent as it was inflexible. They rose at six every morning, weekends included, and made their own beds before washing and dressing; they had breakfast, then attended assembly in the hall where Cribben led them in prayer; by eight o'clock they began lessons in the large drawing room (it was also their dining room), which had been furnished with desks that had fold-up benches attached, a teacher's table with drawers, a coloured tin globe of the world that stood on a sideboard, and a blackboard and easel. Their lunch was at twelve o'clock and only lasted twenty minutes, after which they were each given chores to do around the house: sweeping, dusting and polishing (scrubbing floors on Saturdays), cleaning out the fire grate and re-laying the fire in the sitting room and for the Cribbens alone (despite the constant chill that hugged the house because of the underground river it was built over, the boiler was never used to heat the big iron radiators). Lessons resumed at two and finished at six. They were free to read books in the dormitory until seven (no games were allowed), when they had supper. Bathtime after supper, each of the children bathing on alternate evenings, more assembly prayers in their nightclothes, then bed, lights out by 8 p.m.

Nancy herself lodged in the harbour village, and she arrived at Crickley Hall promptly at 7.45 a.m. every day for lessons, leaving at six each evening.

'It were the punishment dealt out to the kiddies that upset Nancy so much, the beatin's Cribben gave 'em, sometimes with a leather belt but more often with a stick. Nancy was a quiet little thing, but it distressed her the way the orphans was treated. She remonstrated with Cribben more 'n once, but she were frightened to go too far in case she got sacked—couldn't bear to leave the children, she couldn't, in case they was treated worse when she were gone. One time she did go see the vicar, old Horace Rossbridger, to complain about the Cribbens, but he were too much an admirer of Augustus Cribben to listen to her. Told Nancy to go back to work an' mind her business. But I think Nancy resolved to do more about it, but I don't know what.'

Eve regarded Percy. 'What do you mean? Surely—'

He waved a hand at her as if in despair. 'I was conscripted into the army roun' that time. I'd turned eighteen an' the Forces needed every man and lad they could get.'

(Eve quickly did the maths. My God! Percy was eighty-one!)

'We kep' in touch by letter, Nancy an' me, but her letters stopped comin'. Las' one I got from her said she'd made up her mind an' were goin' to the authorities to tell 'em what were goin' on at Crickley Hall. I carried on writin' to her, but nothin' ever came back after that. So I got in touch with her landlady at the lodgings an' she wrote back tellin' me Nancy had quit her job and gone away. Magda Cribben turned up one day at the lodgings and informed the landlady that Nancy was returnin' to London that very afternoon an' needed the rest of her things. Magda didn't explain any more, jus' collected Nancy's few clothes and left with 'em. Nobody heard from Nancy agin'. She were hardly known down in the village anyway and it were wartime—people comin' an' goin' all the time. Nobody bothered to ask questions.'

'But didn't you find Nancy after the war?' asked Eve, touched by Percy and Nancy's romance.

'Oh, I tried, Missus Caleigh, believe me, I tried, but I weren't demobbed 'til late '46 an' by then… well, by then the trail'd gone cold. People went missin' durin' war an' more went missin' after. It was all the confusion, y'see, the country was a mess, gov'mint an' people tryin' to get back to normal. The authorities had no record of Nancy after '43 an' there were too much goin' on for them to care much. Said she probably returned to London and were mebbe killed in the bombing—it was them doodlebugs, them flying bombs that were doing the damage in '44. Bigger ones after that—V-2s they called 'em…'

Percy Judd had searched for but never found Nancy Linnet. After the flood in October 1943, Crickley Hall remained empty and almost derelict for several years. He was kept on as gardener and handyman by the managing agents who looked after the property for the owners, the direct descendants of Charles Crickley, who had moved to Canada at the beginning of the Second World War and had lost interest in the house (which was soon requisitioned by the government for official wartime use). Percy confessed to Eve that he stayed with the place in the foolish hope that Nancy might some day return, or at least make contact with him there. But it was not to be: it was as if his sweetheart had disappeared off the face of the earth itself.

Eventually the house was restored to its former condition—Percy could not force himself to say it was restored to its former glory, because he had never found anything remotely glorious about the place—by successive owners, the last of whom were the Templetons. But rumours about the Hall had spread among the villagers. Rumours that the children had been deliberately trapped in Crickley Hall's cellar on the night of the flood. Rumours that had never entirely gone away.

'Only nine bodies was found inside the house, all of 'em in the cellar,' said Percy, a mistiness in his eyes now. 'It were reckoned the other two'd been washed into the well by the floodwater an' the underground river had carried them out to the bay. Maurice Stafford and the little Polish boy, Stefan, that were. Their bodies were never recovered. The question at the time were why was the children down there when Cribben coulda taken 'em up to the top of the house, or even the landing, which was high enough.

'Augustus Cribben's body were found dead in the big hall, his neck an' back broken, his body cut to pieces when the floodwaters smashed through the window over the stairs. They said he were discovered naked.'

Eve frowned and suddenly felt colder.

'Magda Cribben,' Percy continued after a moment, 'were found next mornin', waitin' alone on the platform of the railway station at Merrybridge. No one knew how she got there. She were only in her usual black dress and brogues—no coat an' no hat—an' she couldn't answer no questions, couldn't speak at all. Never spoke another word.'

'Good God,' said Eve. 'What happened to her?'

'She were put in what they used to call an asylum.'

'She was mad?'

'Mad an' dumb. Couldn't or wouldn't say a word. When she got too old they put her in a nursing home.'

Percy drained his tea, which was cold by then. He placed the cup and saucer on the table and rose to his feet.

'I best be goin', missus. That's all I can tell you 'bout the evacuees who came to Crickley Hall, poor souls.'

'But there must have been an investigation of some kind into why the children were in the cellar. It doesn't make sense.'

'If there were, the outcome were kept quiet. Yer have to remember there were a war goin' on. People had enough to worry about. An' parents wouldna let their kiddies be evacuated at all any more if they thought bad things was goin' happen to 'em. No, I think the gov'mint in them days didn't want to cause no fuss, morale of the country an' all that. An' there were no proper evidence agin' Augustus Cribben anyway. Even the vicar, old Rossbridger, still spoke highly of the man. The only person left who knew what'd been goin' on at Crickley Hall was Magda Cribben an' she weren't sayin'. But y'know, I think Rossbridger were in league with the authorities who wanted things hushed up, 'cause Cribben were buried without ceremony an' his grave were right at the back of the graveyard.'

Percy managed a faint smile for Eve, but the melancholy remained in his faded eyes.

'I'll be getting' on with the garden. I've given yer enough to think on.'

Eve stood too. 'Thank you, Percy,' was all she could think of to say; her head was reeling by now.

Donning his cap and adjusting it on his head, he walked to the door and turned back to her before opening it.

'Are things all right fer yer here, Missus Caleigh?' he asked.

Eve wondered what she could tell him, what he would believe. 'Yes, Percy. Everything's fine.'

'You'd let me know…?' He did not complete the sentence.

Know what? That Crickley Hall was haunted? That the spirits of the children who had died here were somehow making her aware of their presence? That there might possibly be a connection between them and her own missing son? It was too soon to tell. Besides, she could scarcely believe it herself.

'Everything's fine,' she repeated. And her mind was suddenly made up: she knew what she should do.

25: BULLY

Now it was not in Loren Caleigh's nature to hit anybody; in fact, never in her life had she raised a hand or fist in anger, let alone physically struck someone. She abhorred violence in any form and she hated confrontation almost as much. She didn't like it when Dad and little Cam used to play-wrestle on the carpet, Dad allowing her tiny brother to think he'd pinned him down before Dad reared up and held him high over his head until Cam, who loved it when that happened, 'squealed' for mercy, both of them ending up giggling and rolling around the floor again. It always made Mummy laugh too (Mummy laughed a lot in those days), but Loren herself had only smiled, pretending to enjoy the game.

Then one day, Loren had returned home from school and burst into tears. It turned out that a particularly nasty girl in a class a year above Loren's had been picking on her for several weeks, for no other reason, it seemed, than Loren had an American father, someone who 'talked funny'. (Gabe and Eve suspected there were probably other reasons, such as their daughter's own shyness and her quiet personality.) Eve had wanted to complain to the school's headmistress, but Loren had begged her not to. 'It will only make matters worse,' she had wailed. So Dad, much to Mummy's protests, had shown Loren what to do when you were picked on by a bully who was not only older but bigger too. This, of course, was if you'd been pushed to the limit and there was no other way to settle things.

The trick was to get in the first blow. Once you knew there was only one way for the situation to go and it was bound to get physical, you had to strike first. But—'this is important, this is very important'—aim for the bridge of the nose. Not the tip of the nose, nor any other place like the jaw, and never the chest (belly if you just wanted to wind them, but it was not advised). Just that spot at the bridge of the nose, 'smack-down between the peepers'. That should do enough damage to finish it right there and then—'And if it doesn't, get the hell out.'

Warming to the subject—and to Mummy's further chagrin—Dad had told her: 'If your opponent is much bigger than you, or there's more of 'em, never, but never, take it outside. In a room you got furniture to throw, chairs to use as a shield or to whack their heads with, walls to back up against, tables you can push 'em over, and even bits and pieces—say like vases or ornaments—you can throw at the other guy, make 'em back off.'

Mummy realized Dad was half fooling around, but she was angry anyway. Violence could never be an answer, she'd said, and Dad had winked at Loren.

As it happened, the bully girl in question was removed from the school after it was discovered that she was forcing girls even younger than Loren to hand over their dinner money and pocket money. Also, a supply teacher's purse had gone missing from her handbag and the bully girl was discovered in the girls' toilets counting out the change by another teacher. So, much to Loren's relief (and her parents'), the problem was resolved. Whether or not she would have had the courage to 'punch the bully's lights out', as Gabe would have it, was another matter entirely.

But two years later, on a damp Monday afternoon in October, she had certainly used the tactic on Seraphina Blaney. To her dismay, Loren had found herself in the same class at Merrybridge Middle School as the girl she had met—acrimoniously—just before. She remembered her in the store at Hollow Bay, a big girl, stocky, with a face that might have been pretty had the jaw not been too heavy, the forehead too bulbous and the thin lips too scowling.

The moment they set eyes on each other, which was when Loren was being introduced to the class by the teacher, Loren knew she was in for a hard time. Her eyes had locked with Seraphina's, and Loren had recognized the girl who had stared at her with such spite on Saturday. Seraphina had whispered something to the girl sitting next to her and they had both sniggered into their hands. It had turned into a bad day.

Loren had been subjected to mean stares and flicked elastic bands to the back of her neck throughout lessons. At lunchtime, Seraphina, seated at a table, had deliberately stuck out a foot as Loren passed by with her tray of food; Loren had stumbled, tipped the tray, and the full plate on it had skittered across the floor. Losing the macaroni with cheese and jacket potato wasn't the worst part: it was the humiliation that turned her face beet-red in front of the school that Loren hated.

It hadn't ended there. Throughout the rest of the afternoon Loren had been subjected to hissed name-calling, masticated paper pellets aimed at her whenever the teacher's back was turned and pathetic take-offs of her London accent. Fortunately, Seraphina appeared only to have a small coterie of friends to enjoy the tormenting; most of the other pupils were friendly and curious about her in a good way.

She managed to make a friend of another girl from Hollow Bay, a shy little thing those name was Tessa Windle. They had connected when Tessa had helped Loren pick up the remains of her lunch after Seraphina had tripped her. She was the same age as Loren, but seemed a year younger; her Devonian accent was slight and her manner gentle. By the end of the school day, she and Loren had become firm friends.

•

With an exaggerated flourish the driver drew back the blue people-carrier's passenger door.

'All aboard who's goin' aboard,' he called out to the mass of blue-uniformed pupils spilling out of the school gates. Members of his boarding party broke off from the main crowd, skirting round waiting mothers and fathers, arriving at the minibus in groups of two and three, eight of them in all for the journey home to Hollow Bay. Loren, with her new friend Tessa, waited as three boys ahead of them climbed into the vehicle, while the driver looked her over with an unattractive grin. His teeth were yellow, each one isolated from its neighbour by a discernible gap that emphasized their crookedness. Long, lank hair fell to his narrow dandruffy shoulders and he scratched an unshaven chin as he appraised the unfamiliar passenger.

'You'll be the new 'un, will yer?' He scrutinized Loren's face as if suspecting her of carrying some contagious disease that might infect his regulars. 'Laura Caleigh, 'ennit? I was told to expect an extra passenger this afternoon.'

'Loren.'

'Eh?'

'My name's Loren.'

'Laura, Loren. Same thing.'

She wanted to tell him it wasn't—her name was Loren, not Laura; there was a difference, but she didn't like the smell of his rank breath so didn't want to open up a dialogue.

She made to move past him but he said, 'My name's Frank. You can call me Mr Mulley, all right?' Awroit. 'In yer get then. No messin' about when I'm drivin', okay?'

Loren was about to follow Tessa into the bus when a stocky arm blocked her way. Seraphina Blaney glared at her.

'After me, grockle.' She gave Loren a shove.

Grockle, Loren knew, was a derogatory term for tourist or outsider. The girl with Seraphina gave a chortling snort, while Seraphina herself gave Loren a tight-lipped contemptuous smile. Loren chose not to respond and waited as the big girl and her friend climbed aboard. She followed them in, another breathless, older girl arriving and climbing in behind her.

The minibus was not full: the three boys took up the back seats, an empty double-seat in front of them where the last girl to arrive sat; Seraphina and her friend occupied the next seats right behind Tessa. Loren took the seat next to her. Nobody, apparently, wanted the seat closest to the driver. Loren and Tessa balanced their school bags on their knees, Loren glad that the school day was over; it would almost be a relief to get back to Crickley Hall.

Frank Mulley pushed the passenger door shut with a loud sliding thud, then walked round to the driver's side and got in. Wrists resting over the top of the steering wheel, he craned his head round and silently counted off his passengers, lips mouthing each number. When his eyes met with Loren's, he gave her a smirky wink and, although she shuddered inside, she returned a polite smile. He engaged gear and the people-carrier pulled away from the kerb and soon turned into the town's main thoroughfare.

'What yer sittin' next to her for?' Seraphina dug stiff fingers into Tessa's shoulder. 'She yer new best friend? Like grockles, do yer?'

Tessa shrugged her shoulder away from the other girl's touch as Loren glanced round.

'What yer lookin' at, skanky?' This time the fingers jabbed at Loren's shoulder. 'Think yer better than us, do yer?'

Tessa leaned into Loren and whispered, 'Take no notice. She's even worse when her brother's with her. Quentin's on suspension for two weeks for fighting. It's usually Seraphina who gets him into trouble.'

They both giggled together, more out of nervousness than pleasure.

Seraphina wasn't pleased about that. 'You laughin' at me?' She dug into Tessa again, harder this time, using her knuckles.

Tessa shrugged her shoulder away once more, but the girl behind persisted, this time punching Loren's shoulder.

'Please don't do that,' Loren said, half afraid, half annoyed.

'Please don't do that,' Seraphina mimicked in a whining voice. 'Why?' Woy? 'What yer gonna do about it?' Her head did the Bombay shuffle, her neck flexing first to the right, then to the left and then to the right again, head held upright throughout.

Loren turned her back on her and stared ahead. They were passing through the outskirts of the town now, leaving shops and offices behind, many of the dwellings on either side of the road made of flint or quarry stone. Loren feigned interest in the landscape, which was beginning to open up, fields of heather and bracken glimpsed between breaks in the high hedges, with low sullen hills and clouded skies brooding above it all. Raindrops spattered the windows, but there was not much force to them. Throughout the day the rain had seemed to tease, falling in thick flurries one minute, drizzling lightly the next. The gloom that came with the inclement weather somehow nurtured the despondency she felt. It had been a rotten day, even more rotten that she had expected it to be, and it was Seraphina Blaney who had made it worse.

Loren clutched her bag and tried to ignore her tormentor. Those in the bus were aware of what was going on—the taunting of this newcomer, an outsider, a grockle—and some, namely the boys on the back seat and the girl sitting alongside the bully, laughed along with Seraphina's snide remarks; others, though—Tessa and the girl who had entered the minibus behind Loren—looked out of the windows and tried to ignore what was happening. As for Loren, she wanted to cry.

She felt more nudging on her back, each nudge harder than the one before, but she refused to retaliate. She calmed herself with the thought that it was only a short journey, no more than fifteen minutes or so, and soon it would be over and she'd be back with her family… in Crickley Hall. The thought of the cold, shadowy house failed to elevate her mood: it depressed her even more. But she felt the mood turning to anger. The bully's jibes were now including a fresh victim, Loren's 'spazzie' little sister. Loren began to burn.

But it was her new friend, Tessa, who snapped.

'Just stop it, Seraphina Blaney. Leave Loren alone. She's done nothing to you.'

The boys on the back seat laughed aloud and for a moment the tormentor was stunned into silence. Then she rose from her seat, stretched herself over Tessa's shoulder, grabbed Tessa's school bag and emptied the contents into the bus's narrow side aisle. The books spilled out onto the floor and under the seats, pages flapping and pens and pencils clattering, then rolling. Tessa was aghast—and frightened.

And now it was Loren who snapped.

There was no need to remind herself of her father's advice regarding bullies—what took place seemed to happen naturally (and if she'd taken time to think, then probably it wouldn't have happened at all).

Seraphina was still standing between seats, a broad gloating grin on her face, her friend beside her snickering into her hand, the boys behind uncertain and quiet. Her head had just began to turn towards Loren, her small, deep-set eyes glittering with malice, when Loren's balled fist, thumb on the outside, bent level with the knuckles, smashed into the pudgy part of Seraphina's nose.

Loren was disappointed, because she'd been aiming at the bridge of the big girl's nose, right between the eyes as advised; nevertheless, the blow had more effect than she ever would have dreamed. Blood immediately spurted out of Seraphina's nostrils, two bright red jets that splattered her mouth and jaw. Tears sprung into her eyes as she rocked back, the contact between the seat and the back of her knees forcing her legs to buckle so that she had no other choice but to sit. In shock, she stayed down, her fleshy hand cupping the blood that poured from her nose.

The friend next to her stared in horrified awe. One of the boys on the back seat breathlessly said, 'Wow.' Apart from that, there was no other sound inside the minibus. Until the boys started to applaud.

26: CONVERSATIONS

'You did what?' Gabe stared at Loren in disbelief and there was a hint of amusement in his open-mouthed gape.

He had returned home from work and barely had time to discard his coat before Loren came into the hall from the kitchen, followed by Eve, who had told her what she had to do: own up to Dad.

'I didn't mean to.' Loren shook her head as though her actions earlier on the school bus were a mystery even to herself. 'It just happened.'

'You whacked her?' He was incredulous; he had never known his elder daughter to use violence before.

'She knocked Tessa's school bag to the floor.'

'And Tessa is…?'

'She's my new friend at school. She lives in the village and we sat next to each other on the bus coming home. Seraphina deliberately tipped Tessa's bag out so that everything fell on the floor.'

Gabe looked over Loren's shoulder at Eve, who stood grim-faced, arms folded, behind her. He thought he might find a suggestion of a smile, but Eve had no intention of encouraging him or Loren.

'I couldn't help it, Dad,' Loren went on. 'I just did what you taught me without thinking.'

Eve gave a disapproving shake of her head, her eyes glaring at Gabe, as if it was entirely his fault that Loren had punched Seraphina Blaney on the nose.

'Hey, wait a minute,' he said indignantly, his blue eyes wide as he returned Eve's accusatory glare. 'You can't pin this on me. Sounds to me if anyone's to blame it's this other kid, Seraphina.' He remembered where he had first heard the unsuitable name. 'Isn't she the big girl who was in the store the other day with her brother?'

Loren looked ashamedly down at the stone floor. She slowly nodded her head. 'Tessa said Quentin's been suspended for two weeks for fighting in school. Dad, Seraphina was picking on me all day.'

'Then you did good.'

'Gabe!' Eve was in despair.

'The other kid had it coming. Loren did right to defend herself and her friend.'

'Violence is never an answer,' Eve huffed.

'No, you're right,' Gabe agreed sheepishly, at the same time giving Loren a surreptitious wink.

Eve wasn't fooled. 'I saw that. I mean it. Punching someone—especially another girl—doesn't solve anything. Loren will only have to deal with the situation again tomorrow.'

'I'm guessing not,' asserted Gabe. 'Seraphina will have had enough.'

'You don't know that. Hitting her might only have made matters worse.'

Gabe saw that it would be pointless to continue defending his daughter. And he certainly didn't want it to sound like he was countenancing what she'd done (Eve would kill him if he did).

'How's your hand?' he asked Loren.

She held up her right hand so that he could see. 'I thought I'd broken some bones, but it's all right now, just a bit sore.'

Gabe couldn't help chuckling as he examined her knuckles. 'That must've been some punch.'

'I made her nose bleed.'

'You kept your thumb on the outside like I told you? You didn't tuck it inside your fist?'

'Gabe, will you stop this.' There was no humour whatsoever in Eve's expression. 'You shouldn't be giving her boxing lessons.'

'Hey, I'm making sure Loren doesn't break any of her own bones.'

'She's a girl. She's not supposed to fight. And if it comes to that, nor should boys. It's uncivilized.'

Gabe held up both hands in submission. 'Okay, you win. It was a bad thing and Loren won't do it again. Right, Slim?'

Loren nodded her head and Eve softened. 'But you'll let us know if this girl tries to bully you again, you hear me?'

Again, Loren nodded. 'Yes, Mum,' she said. But she and her father exchanged a secret smile.

•

Gabe stamped his feet on the rough mat just inside the kitchen door, shedding wet mud from his boots. Loren, who had accompanied him in the search for Chester, was already hanging her coat on the rack by the door.

Eve appraised Gabe anxiously and he shook his head. 'No luck,' he told her. 'No sign of him anywhere.'

Cally looked distraught and Loren went to Eve for a hug. Arms round Loren's shoulders, Eve said: 'What are we going to do?'

Gabe slipped off his coat and hung it beside Loren's. 'He might turn up on his own, either tonight or some time tomorrow. I'll make another search in the morning, a better one in the daylight.'

'Our London telephone number is on his collar. If someone finds Chester they won't be able to reach us.'

'I'll ring the local police if I don't find him in the morning. And we'll tell Percy to keep a lookout. I'm sure he'll pass the word on to the locals, so there'll be plenty keeping an eye out for the mutt. We'll get Chester back, don't you worry.'

•

'What's changed your mind?' Gabe was bewildered. 'A coupla days ago you didn't like Crickley Hall, you couldn't wait for us to pack our bags and leave.'

Gabe and Eve were in the sitting room. A fire blazed in the hearth, but Gabe had to lean forward in his armchair to catch any warmth. Eve sat opposite him on the couch and she, too, leaned forward, a mug of coffee in her hands, elbows resting on her knees. His coffee mug stood on a coaster close by his foot.

She did not know how to respond to Gabe's question. Blurting out that she'd seen ghosts here wouldn't do at all, because he would demand some kind of evidence of their existence and how could you prove something that wasn't real? He had not been witness to the dancing children; he had not felt Cam's hand soothing his brow.

'Come on, Eve, something must've changed your mind, so help me, tell me what it is.' He couldn't conceal his exasperation.

'I'm sorry, Gabe. It's difficult to explain.'

'Try me.'

'I just feel we need time to get used to the place.'

'That's what I said the other day and you wouldn't listen. It's cold and it's damp, and we keep hearing strange noises. And don't forget Chester—something here scared the hell out of the poor mutt. We don't need this kind of thing at this point in our lives. We got enough to worry about.' His tone changed, dropped in pitch. 'Look, I could see the agent tomorrow, see what else he's got on his books. We could probably be out by the end of the week. What d'you say?'

'Let's give it more time.' What she meant was give her more time, time to discover the meaning of the haunting, time to find out if it had anything to do with their missing son. She thought of a compromise. 'Let's wait just a few more days. If you still feel the same by then we'll move.'

'I can't help thinking that it should be me arguing with you to stay. That's how it was before. Why can't you tell me what's happened to change your mind?'

He was no fool; but then, she already knew that. 'Go with me on this, Gabe,' she pleaded and said no more.

With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair. 'Okay, you win,' he said reluctantly, not quite sure now why he wanted to leave Crickley Hall. Viewing more properties, packing, then unpacking again—he sure as hell didn't need it. But the compromise was fair. Sure, the house was uncomfortable—although it was almost cosy sitting here in front of a roaring fire, even if the heat did not extend too far beyond the hearth. Maybe they did need more time to settle in. Maybe Chester just hadn't liked the strangeness of the house—he was too used to their home in London. Maybe there were odd noises, puddles on the floor, doors that would not stay locked, but there was probably a logical reason for all those things. Wasn't there?

Anyway, what could happen to them here? It was just a cranky old house that, now it had new occupants, was creaking back to life.

He smiled at his wife, who looked even more beautiful in the warm glow of the firelight, a colour back in her cheeks and lively little flames reflected in her eyes.

'Okay, Eve,' he said. 'We'll give it another try.'

After all, what could happen to them here? A house was just a house.

•

It was as if Crickley Hall had paused to take a breath.

There were no incidents that night, no rappings, no sounds of running feet, no 'whimpering' from closed closets. Nothing untoward occurred during that night and the Caleigh family slept peacefully. Even Eve rested, although her mind was filled with ethereal images of spinning tops and dancing children.

Loren and Cally fretted over their missing pet for a short while, but sleepy tiredness soon overcame them both. Gabe was out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

The wind that rushed through Devil's Cleave to the bay below died away and the rain became a light patter.

All was still and silent in Crickley Hall, save for the creaking of the cellar door as it opened a few inches.

27: TUESDAY

Not for the first time Gabe strode across the hall to close the open cellar door. He examined the lock first, though, turning its long key backwards and forwards, having only to use slight pressure to move the locking bolt in and out. There appeared to be no reason for the door to keep unlocking itself and straying open a few inches, enough for a breeze to rise up from the cellar below and escape into the hall. The breeze, he realized, must come from the well down there, rushing waters creating strong draughts of air. But strong enough to push a locked door open? It seemed unlikely, but it also seemed to be the case.

Opening the door even wider, he peered into the inky gloom. The dismal daylight from the hall itself did not travel far into the stairway: it was as if the blackness was pushing back the light, rather than the other way round. Without a candle or flashlight, he ruminated, a person would be swallowed up by it. As if for reassurance, Gabe reached in and flipped down the light switch. The light that came on at the bottom of the stairs was barely fit for the job, for its dusty glow had only a limited effect on the darkness. The smell that wafted up was dank and unpleasant and the low, muffled roar of the underground river was somehow disturbing, as if it were boasting its threat, bragging its danger.

Gabe closed the door and the river's sound diminished, could only be heard if he really listened. He twisted the key again so that the door was locked, and he wondered how long it would remain so. Eve had suggested that he fix a bolt to it, high enough to be out of Cally's reach, and he resolved to visit a hardware store when he was next in town.

It was early, just after 6 a.m., and Eve and the girls were still in bed waiting for their alarms to go off. Gabe was wide awake, though, and full of repressed vigour after a decent night's sleep, finally. Despite the chill, he wore only a pale grey sweatshirt with the arms cut off at the elbows, slim black joggers and his usual sturdy ankle boots. Back at home in London, he managed at least twenty minutes pounding the pavement every weekday before work and he felt he needed to get back to a similar routine. The air should be better and the scenery was certainly much more pleasant.

Still puzzled by the wayward cellar door, he went to the hall's front door, which did have bolts top and bottom, although so far they had relied only on its key lock. This was deep countryside where houses were not meant to be vulnerable to late-night intruders—or so the theory went, he told himself, as he unlocked the door. Maybe no home was safe from burglars any more, country, town or city.

He swung the door wide and fresh air seemed to throw itself at him, immediately cleansing his nostrils of the cellar's lingering odour. The sun had not quite risen above the gorge wall and the trees and shrubbery across the river appeared black and a little forbidding; in the city even the darkest of mornings were lit by street lamps and early-opening shops. Nevertheless, the day would quickly grow brighter as he ran and at least there would not be hazardous junctions to cross, traffic to dodge. He'd keep a lookout for Chester and call his name while he ran: maybe the mongrel hadn't travelled too far and was only keeping clear of the house itself. He would ring the local police station later that morning to report their missing pet, but that was in Merrybridge and they were hardly likely to send out a task force to look for Chester.

Gabe drew in great lungfuls of air, priming himself for the run, and when he bent low to stretch his spine, he saw something lying on the doorstep. He frowned, then knelt beside it. Only one of its wings was splayed, the other lying half beneath the bird's body and, although the light was poor, Gabe saw no wounds or any other reason for its demise. It looked like a wood pigeon to him, and when he picked it up, the head hung loose and the released wing fell open. He examined it further and still could find no gashes or death-causing breaks. It seemed the bird had died of old age rather than anything else. It had probably crashed to the ground mid-flight during the night and had just happened to land on their doorstep.

Gabe was glad he had found it first before Loren or Cally set eyes on it: they would have been distressed. He stood and with his free hand he closed the front door behind him. He trotted past the swing hanging from the old oak and stopped by the bridge. Rather than throw the dead pigeon, he leaned over the rushing waters, one hand hanging onto a rail and, as gently as possible, dropped the feathery corpse into the swollen river where it was swiftly washed away by the current.

•

Pulvington was easy to find on the map and Eve made the journey in less than twenty minutes. Mostly the roads were good, although several times she had to slow the Range Rover to walking pace in order to squeeze past oncoming traffic. Gabe working at home today gave her the perfect opportunity to use their car. It was a shopping expedition, she had told him, the chance to find a supermarket and a decent range of shops. Pulvington appeared to be one of the larger local towns.

Although he would be working in the room off the L-shaped first-floor landing, which he had turned into a makeshift office, he'd be able to keep an eye on Cally, whose bedroom/playroom was only a few doors away on the other arm of the landing. It wouldn't be a hassle for Gabe, because Cally was good at playing on her own, her lively imagination creating all kinds of scenarios for her and her dollies, or the little plastic play people she was so fond of, to act out. Gabe would be within easy hearing distance of her and Cally knew she could go along to his 'office' whenever she liked or wanted something; even though he would be working on the complex operation of the marine turbine, Eve knew that Gabe would be only too glad of interruptions as long as there were not too many, and Cally had promised she would disturb Daddy only when it was absolutely necessary. Eve had used the excuse that she could get a big shop done in half the time without Cally in tow and Gabe had readily agreed to have their daughter with him for a couple of hours, despite his work load. 'Not a problem,' he had told Eve.

Eve parked the Range Rover in the town's small busy carpark and then walked round to the high street, looking for the address on the card she held in her hand. It was a cold autumnal day, but at least it wasn't raining yet.

Eve had thought of ringing ahead, but Crickley Hall oddly only had that one telephone, despite the size of the house, and it was in the hall, which was not at all private. She hadn't wanted Gabe to overhear her. Also, the phone was not the ideal medium for telling a complete stranger the story of her missing son and how she thought the house she was presently living in was haunted.

No, the only course of action was to go to the psychic reader's address and speak to her directly. Telephones were too impersonal for a story such as hers. Of course, it might be that the psychic, this Lili Peel, had moved on—Eve knew that the faded card she clutched in her left hand was two years old, but she was prepared to take the chance. At the least, it provided an opportunity for some required shopping (as she walked she noticed there was a supermarket, albeit a smallish one, along the high street).

She noted the numbers on houses and shops that she passed, once or twice almost bumping into other pedestrians because her attention was mainly on door numbers, which on her side of the road were even. 96, 98, 100 went by, and soon she found what she was looking for. Number 116 High Street, Pulvington, came as a surprise.

It was a tiny crafts shop squeezed between a florist's and a dry cleaner's. The narrow half-glassed door was painted apple green, as was the frame around the window next to it, and the sign stretched above both simply declared in elegant, white script: Craftworks. Displayed in the show window were pots and vases of various sizes painted in either bright or soothing colours. There were also little figurines and statues on display with glass animals and clay dishes, along with pendants and metal earrings, brooches and bracelets, all carefully set out yet nonetheless crammed together. The hanging sign on the glass part of the door said OPEN.

With a short intake of breath, Eve went in.

•

Gabe sat perched on a stool at his drawing board and easel, chewing on the end of an HB pencil. He was none too happy. He didn't know why, but finding the dead bird on the doorstep that morning had spoilt his day. It was unfortunate that it had fallen at Crickley Hall's door.

There had been no sign of Chester when Gabe was on his run. He'd called the dog's name every hundred yards or so, but there'd been no response. The mongrel had well and truly got himself lost. The whole family, but especially Loren and Cally, was upset and, although Chester was only a dog, his disappearance so close to the date of Cam's disappearance nearly a year ago was particularly distressing. The engineer resolved to search a wider area once Eve was back with the car. He had reported the missing pet to the local police but, as expected, they didn't seem very interested.

Before him on a sheet of A4 paper was his rudimentary sketch of the improved machinery that would raise and lower Seapower's marine turbine rotor and drive chain, a much simpler arrangement than they had at the moment, so there was less to go wrong. He'd also suggested a mechanical device that would relieve the system of much of the strain when lifting machinery from the water in strong tides. He would ink in a more detailed specification, sign it, and have a copy sent to APCU's head office for checking by his principal engineer.

Gabe quickly checked out some measurement figures on his laptop, which sat on a small wooden side table that he had brought in from another room. It was at right angles to the board and easel and held items such as set squares, pens, pencils and paper, as well as a couple of engineering manuals. He was pleased with his morning's work, but would go over every detail two or three times to make sure the operation was viable before submitting it. It was only when he was jotting down numbers in a half-filled notebook that he heard the muted sound coming from along the landing.

He smiled to himself. Its source was Cally, playing in her bedroom. She was singing or talking to herself, a common enough trait of kids around her age. He strained to hear what she was saying or singing, but her voice was no more than a muffled drone.

Gabe suddenly had the urge to see her, a response that was not unusual for him, or for any other father of a five-year-old. Resting his pencil on the edge of the drawing board's movable plastic ruler, he slipped from his stool and went to the door of the makeshift office. He listened again and Cally's voice was a little louder.

She was both singing and holding a conversation, probably with one of her dolls, or Jumper, the pink teddy bear. Once in a while he and Eve eavesdropped on Cally's dialogue with her 'friends' and it always filled them with wonder at their daughter's conviction that she truly was conversing with a real person. She would say something in her little girl way, then become silent as if listening to a reply, and then she would respond to that. It made Gabe and Eve chuckle on occasions until they had to creep away, hands over mouths, lest they be heard. Not that it would have made much difference to Cally: she believed what she believed.

Evidently, his daughter was having a fine old time with her imaginary playmates, for giggles interspersed the chatter and songs. Gabe moved out onto the landing and leaned over the balustrade, trying to peer into her room from that angle. He couldn't see her through the open doorway, but her voice was clearer. Where many young children might answer themselves by assuming another voice, Cally never did. Replies were always inside her head.

Intrigued as always, Gabe pulled back from the balcony and tiptoed along the carpetless landing, quietly taking the turn, slowing his pace as he drew nearer to her bedroom because he didn't want to interrupt her.

When he was within a step of the doorway, a floorboard creaked beneath his foot and it was loud enough to announce his presence.

Cally stopped talking.

Discovered, Gabe stepped into the doorway, a smile on his face, a greeting on his lips.

His jaw stayed open but no sound came out. He blinked in surprise. And in that blink, the tiny bright lights that hovered around his daughter vanished.

•

As was to be expected, the inside of the crafts shop was narrow, but the ceiling was high and two switched-off paperball pendant lights hung low from it. A lamp on the small desk at the far end of the shop was on, though, and its glow brightened the blonde hair of the woman whose head was bowed as she worked on something sparkly on her desk.

Like the display window, shelves and solo stands in the long room were crowded with things to buy. Original paintings adorned the walls, most of them watercolours and all of landscapes or fishing boats; some were excellent, others merely adequate. Sheer but colourful scarves were draped round the necks of white headless busts on the shelves, while more clay and stone figurines along with bric-a-brac and glass vases filled the spaces around them. There were two hat trees, both with straw hats and straw baskets hanging from them. On the solo display stands were pendants, bracelets and brooches, most made of plain or coloured metals; there were rings and more bracelets of coral and seashells, as well as copper and pewter emblems fashioned into signs of the zodiac.

Without even pretending to be interested in the goods on show, Eve walked the length of the shop to where the blonde woman was absorbed in her intricate labour. Eve saw that she was working on a crystal necklace, passing thin black thread through minute silver links pressed into the tops of the stones, all of which were of soft, various-coloured hues. The lamplight glinted off the crystals.

The blonde woman raised her head as Eve approached. She was strikingly pretty, Eve thought at once, her yellow hair shortish but flicked out at the sides, her fringe tethered by a thin leather thong she wore as a headband. Even sitting, she appeared petite, almost fragile, her shoulders narrow, her neck long and finely curved. Her face was pale, her nose small but nicely defined, and her lips were a delicate pink. But it was her eyes that struck Eve most of all, for they were of the palest green flecked with brown, with full dark eyelashes framing them. As interesting as those eyes were, they stared up at Eve impassively, as if deliberately guarded.

Her voice was soft but direct when she spoke. 'Can I help you?'

Eve could not help but feel it was not a sincere offer. She held out the small card she still had in her hand. 'I'm looking for this person,' she said. 'Ms Lili Peel.'

Those lovely but somehow brittle green eyes went to the card. That's old.' She looked up at Eve again. 'It's out of date.'

'I know,' Eve replied. 'It's been in a shop window for the past two years.'

She noticed that the woman at the desk wore wide wristbands of small different-coloured beads on both wrists, the sleeves of the soft-knit top she wore only reaching her elbows.

'Are you Lili Peel?' Eve asked.

The green eyes hardened. 'I don't do psychic readings any more.'

Eve felt the disappointment drag at her. 'I'm willing to pay more than your usual fee,' she tried.

'No. I mean it. I don't do readings.' Lili Peel picked up the crystal necklace and resumed threading it as if Eve had already gone.

But Eve knew the blonde woman was still conscious of her; her hands shook a little as she drew the thread through its link. 'Ms Peel, I really need your help. Something is happening and I have nobody else to turn to.'

Still not looking up, Lili Peel said, 'Try the local weekend newspaper, you'll find small ads for spiritualists, clairvoyants, whatever you need.'

'This can't wait 'til the weekend. I have to do something now. Won't you at least listen to me and then decide?'

Lili laid the necklace down and regarded Eve, the hardness still there in her eyes, a lack of compassion that seemed so wrong for such a pretty girl.

'I'm sorry, but I can't do anything for you.'

'You're no longer psychic?' Eve only asked the question because she wanted at least to engage Lili Peel in conversation, take it past the stranger-on-stranger stage.

'You don't choose to be psychic,' Lili said, her voice softening only a little. 'Neither do you choose not to be.'

'But if you can help people…?' Eve let the question hang.

'It doesn't always work that way. Sometimes it does more harm than good. Please, I don't mean to be rude, but there really isn't anything I can assist you with.'

'Hear me out, that's all I ask. If you still can't help me—if you don't want to help me—then fine, I'll leave your shop and won't bother you again.' Tears blurred Eve's eyes and she tried to control the tremble in her voice. 'I'm so… I'm so desperate. Perhaps it will help me just to talk about it.'

She couldn't stop them. Eve had tried to stay in control, but the tears just came unbidden. She had put too much hope into something that might only have been a dream or illusion. She dug into her pocket for a handkerchief.

'I'm sorry,' she said, at least containing her sobs. 'I didn't mean to…'

Lili Peel still eyed her coolly, but said: 'There's a chair by the wall. Why don't you bring it over to the desk.'

•

Gabe didn't want to frighten Cally; he kept his tone light. 'Hey, how y'doing, Sparky?'

''Lo Daddy.' She went on positioning her little plastic people around the little plastic house. A yellow Bart Simpson was somewhere among them.

She seems calm enough, thought Gabe. But then, nothing seemed to faze Cally much. Surely he must have imagined the lights? Or it was a trick of the light, the sun shining through remaining raindrops on the window. But then, why had the lights disappeared almost as soon as he laid eyes on them?

He went over to his daughter and squatted by her. 'You having a good time there, honey? Is ol' Bart in trouble again?'

'He's bin good.'

Gabe watched her as she manoeuvred the teeny plastic people around the miniature house whose whole front wall was swung open.

'Who were you talking to, Cally?' he ventured cautiously. To these guys?' He motioned towards the plastic Lilliputian figures.

'Nowah.' The negative had two syllables, rising at the end as though she was impatient with his dumb question.

'Really? Oh, who then?'

She shrugged. 'My friends.'

'Your friends? The ones you make up?'

'Nowah.' Two impatient syllables again, now uttered with disinterest.

'Well, who then? I can't see anybody.'

'They've gone now. Gone away.'

'Who are they?'

'You know—the children.'

He studied her bowed head for a moment.

'Why can't I see them?' he asked.

She became even more impatient with him. ''Cos you can't, Daddy. I told you, they've gone away.'

'But why didn't I see them before they went, you know, when I came into the room?'

'I 'unno.'

Bart Simpson was becoming a regular pain. 'Tell me properly, Squirt. Why didn't I see the kids?'

''Cos they're a secret,' she answered, finally looking up at him.

'I think I saw the lights, those little floating lights. But they went away as soon as I came in. Is that what you mean, are the lights the children?'

'Children are jus' children, Daddy,' she explained as if he were the child and she the adult.

'Uh, do you see them a lot? The children, I mean.'

She shook her head.

'What d'you do when they come?'

'We play.'

He rose to his feet, knowing he was not going to get any more from her. What is it about this goddamn place? he asked himself. 'Okay, Sparky—' he began to say, but whirled towards the door when a great banging started up outside on the landing.

Cally stared after him in alarm as he rushed through the doorway.

28: CAM

'My son Cameron disappeared a year ago,' Eve began to tell Lili Peel. 'Almost a year ago'—she corrected herself. 'I'd taken Cam, as we always called him, and his sister, Cally—she was four years old then, a year younger than my son—I'd taken them to a local park. Our home is in London, but we're here in Devon while my husband conducts some business with a Devon-based company.' She didn't feel details were necessary at this stage, but the psychic asked a question.

'Where are you living while you're here?'

Eve dabbed at her eyes, the tears all but dried out now, while the misery lingered as always; there was no relief in tears for her.

'Near Hollow Bay. Do you know it?'

'I've visited once or twice.' Lili Peel didn't add that she had never liked the place, even though the harbour village was pretty enough. It was the atmosphere she didn't care for, the unsettling gloom that somehow shadowed the place. She supposed that, as a sensitive, she picked up vibes more easily than other 'normal' people. 'Two years ago I left my card in the shop there.'

'Yes. Of course you know Hollow Bay.' Eve crumpled the handkerchief into a ball in her fist. 'You have no Devon accent, though. You're not from the county.'

'No, I come from Surrey. I moved here seven years ago.' She'd answered curtly as if reluctant to talk about herself.

Lili Peel must have come to Devon in her early twenties—she could be no more than twenty-eight, twenty-nine.

'Have you always had the gift?' Eve nevertheless enquired.

'If you can call it that,' the psychic replied. 'I realized I was different, that I seemed to know things I shouldn't, from the age of seven. If my parents ever mislaid something—anything from a sewing needle to the car keys—I always knew where it was.' She said no more, expecting Eve to continue.

Eve gathered herself, resolving to tell the story of her missing son without too much emotion. It wouldn't be easy, not even after all this time.

'Cally was asleep in her buggy, while I watched Cam from a bench close to the park's play area. He was on the swings, then at the climbing frame—he seemed to be all over the place at once. I kept my eyes on him all the time and it was only later when he wanted to play in the sandpit that I relaxed. Although the weather was cold and the sand was damp, Cam insisted on playing in there, so I let him. I thought at least he could come to no harm; there wasn't any way he could injure himself. And so, yes, I relaxed for a few moments.'

It was painful for Eve to relive that horrendous day, but she managed to maintain control. Months and months of guilt and sorrow had worn her down; going over and over that crisply cold day in October time and time again in her mind until she was exhausted with it, tortured by it. Perhaps it was emotional fatigue that stemmed her tears now.

'I was a freelance writer for fashion magazines back then,' she went on, even now hating herself for having such a time-consuming and wearing job, on a freelance basis or not. 'I'd worked 'til three in the morning to meet a copy date, and I was very tired. I'd promised Cam and Cally—we have another daughter, Loren, who's now twelve years old—I'd promised I'd take them to the park the previous day if they left me alone long enough to write my piece.' She smiled wanly. 'As it was, I never really got into the article during the day—too many phone calls, too many other things going on—which is why I ended up working late into the night and the following morning.'

She paused and Lili Peel at least nodded sympathetically.

'I fell asleep on the park bench. I don't know how long for—it felt like seconds, but it must have been minutes, several minutes. There were lots of other children with their mothers in the play area, so I thought he'd be all right. Even so, I didn't deliberately go to sleep; it just happened, sleep just overcame me.'

Eve cast her eyes downwards, away from the psychic's stare.

'When I woke up, Cam was gone. Cally was wide awake and howling to be let out of her buggy so she could play too. It must have been her crying that roused me. I looked towards the sandpit—it was only a few yards away—and Cam wasn't there any more. I looked everywhere in the play area and rushed up to other mothers and older children to ask them if they'd seen Cam anywhere. I asked them if they'd seen anyone take my son away. I was frantic, close to hysteria, and some of the mothers were kind enough to help me look further afield. We split up, each of us going in different directions into the main park, searching, asking people if they'd seen a blond-haired little boy wandering on his own or being led away by some person, man or woman.'

Eve's upper body sagged in the chair as she experienced—yet again—the nightmare.

'But it was hopeless. Cam had vanished. I rang the police on my mobile and they sent a WPC over; together, Cally very quiet in her buggy as if she sensed something was terribly wrong, we covered every inch of the park. The policewoman did her best to calm me down while we looked, but by then I was completely strung out. Because it was October, dusk came quickly, and by then there was a whole team of policemen and women searching for Cam in the park and the area around it. They even drove me back to my own home and scoured it from top to bottom. My son went on the missing persons' list right away, and I believe the police did their best to find him, but we never saw our little boy again.'

Lili Peel's voice had softened only slightly. 'Did you—did the police—suspect he'd been snatched?'

'Eventually a kidnapping was my only hope. And although we never received a ransom note or call—not that we're wealthy anyway—and known paedophiles in the neighbourhood were questioned, the police never found Cam, nor any trace of him—a piece of clothing, a lost shoe. Nothing.'

The psychic's next question was put awkwardly. 'Mrs Caleigh—Eve, are you asking me to contact your dead son for you?'

Eve sat rigid in the chair. 'No,' she almost shouted. Then, softer: 'No, Cam isn't dead, don't you see? That's why I don't care if you're not a clairvoyant or spiritualist, a medium, whatever they call themselves. I'm certain my son is alive and that's why I'm asking you to use your psychic ability to reach him.'

'Eve… Eve, why do you think Cam is still alive after all this time? It's a hard thing for me to say, but you have no evidence that he's alive. How can you be so sure?'

'Because I would know if he were dead, I would feel he wasn't here any more. A mother just knows these things. Call it intuition, or—or telepathy, but I truly sense Cameron is still here, still alive.'

She stumbled over her words as she tried to explain, tried to convince this person that her son wasn't dead. 'Cam… Cam… and I… we were so, so close. Some of the time—no, most of the time we even knew—we even knew what the other one was thinking, something I don't share with my daughters.'

Eve raised her left hand, her fingers straight and joined together. Then she lifted the right one, putting both hands together, palms facing inwards towards herself.

Lili Peel looked at them, mystified.

'You see the little finger on my right hand?' Eve said, jabbing that hand forward an inch. 'You see? It's much, much shorter than the little finger of my left hand.' She joined both hands again, both little fingers side by side.

The psychic saw that Eve was correct: there was a marked difference in the sizes of the smallest fingers, the one on the right far shorter than the one on the left. But she shook her head, not understanding.

Eve dropped her hands into her lap. 'A medium, a credible one I interviewed a long time ago, noticed how my right little finger was shorter than usual and it was she who told me to compare both hands. I suppose I'd never really thought about it before; I'd noticed, but had just accepted the difference, it was of no consequence. But the medium, who'd impressed me during the interview, told me it was a sign that I had the capacity for psychic ability, but that I'd never bothered to use it.'

She briefly showed her right hand again. 'When I informed her my very young son's hands were the same, she said it was a sign that we shared a telepathic link. And it made sense to me. That was why we often knew what the other was thinking, how Cam was always aware when I'd been hurt, even if it was only a stubbed toe. He could be at playschool or somewhere off with his father and he'd know it and would ask me about it when he got home. He was only a toddler, but he would know my moods instantly, whether I was happy or sad, and he'd act appropriately. I didn't sense things in quite the same way he did; his ability, maybe because he's just a child and his mind is still clear and open to such things, has always been stronger than mine. I'd always considered my own sensing of him to be just maternal instinct anyway, even though it wasn't the same between my daughters and me.'

The other woman attempted to calm Eve, who had become quite agitated again. 'Wait, wait a minute.' She held up her own hand to stop her and dropped it again. 'If you both share this extrasensory gift, then why hasn't your son contacted you by now? You might feel within yourself that he's alive—and I'm sorry to be so harsh—but why hasn't he let you know?'

'But he has, don't you see? True, I haven't received what you might call a clear "mental message" from him, but I think he's been trying to let me know he's alive ever since he disappeared.'

'You're sure of this?'

'No, I can't be sure! How could I be? I've had my doubts since he's been gone, but that's only natural. I've always come back to the feeling—the sensing— that Cam is still here, though. What's more, something happened on Sunday that confirmed those feelings, something that prompted me to come to you.'

One hand clutching the edge of the small desk, Eve went on to describe the events of two days ago, that early Sunday afternoon when she had dozed on the couch in Crickley Hall's sitting room: how Cam—she was certain it was Cam even if she hadn't actually seen him; her deepest inner feelings couldn't be wrong—had touched and soothed her after she had been frightened by something dark… something evil that was somehow connected to the house itself. And then waking to find Cam's photograph had fallen onto the floor. She stared earnestly into the psychic's green eyes.

'I knew it was my son who made the bad thing go away,' she insisted. 'I couldn't have imagined it all.'

Behind her, Eve heard the shop door open, followed by the heavy trudge of boots on wood flooring. Lili Peel had already looked towards the entrance and Eve swivelled on the chair to see the customer who had entered. It was a woman, middle-aged, portly, a scarf round her head, a closed umbrella in one hand. She was wearing hiking boots, baggy corduroys tucked into the ankles.

The customer frowned back at the two figures sitting at the desk and something must have been conveyed to her, a feeling that she'd interrupted something important and private, for she quickly picked up a stone ornament on a shelf, turned it over in her hand, perhaps to find the price sticker on the bottom, and just as quickly returned it to the shelf. Without inspecting another thing, the woman left the shop, closing the door quietly as she went.

Lili Peel jumped in first before Eve could say another word. She rested her elbows on the desktop, clasping her hands together, and said: 'Because someone has the psychic gift, it doesn't necessarily follow that that person believes in ghosts.'

She lifted a hand again, palm towards Eve, who was about to interrupt.

'As it happens,' Lili Peel went on, 'I do believe in ghosts and the afterlife. So what I want to know is, what makes you so sure that what you saw or sensed wasn't, in fact, your son's spirit, his ghost? It would sound more reasonable to me. Spirits have been known to move material objects, so why not the photograph? Why do you think it was telepathy rather than contact with your dead son's ethereal spirit?'

Her eyes bore into Eve's with a coldness to them, a kind of brittle hardness that could not be easily broken.

'Because Cam gave me hope again,' Eve responded immediately. 'I had almost given up, almost come to believe Cameron was dead, I just couldn't find it within myself to accept it. My doubts have been steadily growing stronger these last few months; but on Sunday, after what happened, the feeling it left me with, I knew, just knew, Cam was alive and trying to contact me through his mind. He's trying to tell me where I can find him.'

The psychic was silent for a few moments, as if she didn't know how to react. Then those green eyes hardened once again. 'I'm sorry,' she said, 'but that's not enough.' Her tone was still curt, as if she were determined not to accept Eve's conviction. 'It doesn't mean your son is alive. The opposite, if anything.'

Eve's own voice became curt. 'What if I told you he was being helped by others?'

'What do you mean by that?'

Eve, undaunted by the younger woman's attitude and without a trace of self-doubt, went on to explain what had been happening in the house they were renting, the rappings, the small pools of water, the cellar door that refused to stay shut. She told the psychic about the running footsteps she and her family had heard coming from the attic dormitory. She told Lili Peel about the spinning top and the dancing children that she and Cally had witnessed, the small faces at the dormer windows. Eve told her that eleven children had perished in the house, drowned in the great flood of 1943.

'This house,' said Lili Peel. 'What's it called? It has a name, doesn't it, not a number?'

Eve was surprised by the question. 'Yes. It's called Crickley Hall. Do you know of it?'

A shadow seemed to pass over the psychic's face. She stared intently at Eve. 'I was told about the floods when I was last in Hollow Bay. When I gave my card to the shopkeeper to put in her window, she read it and said if I was a psychic I should go up to Crickley Hall. Plenty of ghosts up there, she said, then she told me about the flood and the children, and that nobody had ever stayed at Crickley Hall for long. It was an unhappy house, she said, and I thought that in a strange way she enjoyed telling me about it. I remember passing the place—across a short wooden bridge, the shopkeeper said, a mile or so up the lane—and I remember I shivered when I saw it. There was a terrible depression about the place, not unlike the depression that hangs over the village itself, only this was stronger, more concentrated.'

'Then you do think it could be haunted? Haunted by those poor children.'

'I didn't say that. I've never been inside, so I wouldn't know.'

'But you said there was an atmosphere—a depression—about it, which you felt even though you were only passing by.'

'Some houses are affected by the tragic things that happen in them. It's as if the walls retain the memory. It doesn't mean they're haunted, though.'

Lili Peel was silent for a few moments. Then, abruptly: 'No, I won't—I can't—help you.'

Eve was dismayed. After all she had told the psychic, how she'd poured out her heart to her and had thought she was being believed. Despite her curtness, Eve had thought Lili Peel was sympathetic. Now she was refusing to help her.

'Haven't I convinced you?' she asked at last, almost pleadingly.

'It isn't that, although I wonder why, if as you say your son and you have always shared a telepathic link, he hasn't let you know his whereabouts psychically.'

'Because our mutual ability, especially mine, isn't strong enough. That's why I need you.'

'But what can I do?'

'You can help me find my son. If I do have any power it's too weak to strengthen the psychic link with Cameron. If you're genuinely psychic, it shouldn't be too difficult for you. I'm not interested in ghosts, I don't care if Crickley Hall is haunted or not; all I want you to do is talk to Cam. I know you can succeed where I've failed.'

Lili Peel was suddenly suspicious. 'What does your husband feel about this?' She had leaned back in her chair, one hand remaining on the desk, the other falling to her lap.

'He… he doesn't know about Cam coming to me.'

'That's curious. You haven't told him?'

'Gabe is awkward about this kind of thing. He doesn't really believe in it.'

'He's heard noises, has seen some kind of evidence, as you have, hasn't he?'

Eve gave a shake of her head as if dismissing her husband's part in the matter. 'He has heard noises, yes, and he was the one who discovered the puddles that appeared from nowhere. Gabe thinks there's a natural explanation for it all. But then he hasn't experienced what I have.'

The psychic exhaled a short but heavy breath, perhaps one of annoyance, Eve couldn't be sure.

'How do I know you haven't imagined these ghosts?' the psychic said. 'You seem distraught, you're obviously still in deep grief over your loss. Depression mixed with hope and anxiety can do a lot to the mind, can make you believe in the impossible. Perhaps even cause you to hallucinate. I think a doctor might help you better than I'm able.'

'I'm not mad, I'm not imagining.' Despair was provoking anger in Eve. 'I'm not hallucinating.'

'I'm not suggesting you're mad. But you are overwrought and that can—'

'Please, won't you help me?'

Lili Peel was startled by the fierceness of the outburst. When she spoke again, it was calmly, but determinedly. 'I no longer use my gift, Mrs Caleigh. Not deliberately, that is—I can't stop sensing some things, but I no longer practise as a psychic.'

'But why?' Tears had again formed in Eve's eyes.

'I'm sorry, but I want you to leave now. Your problems aren't mine, and I don't want them to be. I can't help you.'

Eve was defeated. There was nothing more she could say to change Lili Peel's mind and she knew it. The expression on the other woman's face was resolute. Eve was beaten.

She slowly rose to her feet, gave one last look of appeal to the psychic, who refused to meet her gaze, and left the shop.

Eve couldn't quite understand how—or why—the meeting with Lili Peel had ended so abruptly.

29: HIDDEN

Gabe shifted the cardboard boxes, dumping them unceremoniously outside on the landing. Cally watched as he ducked back inside the cupboard, her first finger crooked over her short little nose, the thumb of the same hand lodged between her milk teeth. Daddy looked very serious.

The knocking he and Cally had heard coming from the landing cupboard again stopped even before Gabe touched the doorknob, but he was determined to find its cause this time.

The boxes were not heavy and through the open lid of one Gabe saw it contained cleaning utensils and liquids—a bottle of Jif and another half-filled bottle of green detergent, bleach, a scrubbing brush and one or two pieces of wrinkled rag, as well as a duster. This was obviously where Crickley Hall's regular cleaners stowed their gear for the upper floor; he had already removed the mop and broom.

Only the rolled-up rug remained inside the cupboard and Gabe snatched it up and threw it out onto the landing. 'Okay, you son-of-a-bitch,' he muttered under his breath, 'let's see what you're hiding.'

But all he could make out at the back of the cupboard was the wall that for some reason had been painted black. The two thin waterpipes that were low to the floor disappeared through a small hole cut out of the wall's left-hand corner and Gabe bent low to study it. No animal, mouse-size or otherwise, could have squeezed through the space between the pipes and the edge of the cutout. He ran his fingers along the floor, feeling for any other holes at the base of the wall, but there were none.

Carefully, he backed out, rising as he went, making sure he didn't bump into Cally, who was watching from the doorway.

'Have you found somethink, Daddy?' she asked, staring up at him as he loomed over her.

'Not yet, honey,' he replied. 'Gonna need more light.'

He took his daughter by the hand and led her to the top of the stairs.

'Wait right here, Sparky,' he instructed her, 'while I go get me the flashlight.' He held up a finger in front of her face as if the gesture would augment the command, then hurried down the broad staircase, taking two steps at a time, too agile to miss a step. The flashlight had been left by the telephone on the chiffonier and he quickly grabbed it, switching it on in advance as he mounted the stairs again. Cally was waiting right where he had left her, thumb in her mouth, eyes wide with curiosity and just a little nervousness. He gave her a reassuring smile and tousled her hair as he passed. Striding back to the open landing cupboard, he realized he should have also brought his toolbox with him; he might need a long screwdriver or claw hammer to prise up a floorboard or two.

Gabe stooped to enter the cupboard again and Cally peered round the doorframe. Once through the door, he was able to straighten, although not to his full height; the interior ceiling wasn't high enough for that and it slanted downwards towards the back. Shining the torch beam around, he examined walls, floor and ceiling more thoroughly, checking for openings that rodents might use. There weren't any.

He briefly wondered why anyone would bother to paint the back wall black, and that made him curious. He moved further into the cupboard, stooping low, and the circle of light from the torch became smaller, more concentrated, on the rear wall's pitchy surface.

Looking at the edges all around, he noticed that the paint slightly overlapped the surrounding walls and floor, as if whoever had done the painting had been a little slapdash. Whatever the reason for the colour, it made the cupboard look deeper than it really was, the slope of the ceiling adding to the illusion. He pressed the black wall with his fingertips, testing its solidity, then rapped on it with his knuckles. It sounded hollow.

A false wall? Now that could be interesting. The wall sounded and felt like it was made of thin wood. When he had pressed the surface it seemed to give slightly.

Going down on both knees, Gabe inspected the edges once again, this time more carefully, seeking any flaws or breaks that could be used for leverage. But the black paint had been laid on so thickly that all four sides were sealed.

Shoulda brought the toolbox up with me, he admonished himself again. Coulda sliced through the paint with a blade or screwdriver, used either one to pull out the whole partition.

He hunched, stretching himself forward to examine the corner where the waterpipes passed through the wooden wall.

'Whatcha doin', Daddy?'

He looked over his shoulder to see Cally cautiously poking her head into the cupboard.

'Gonna try something. You just hang on out there.'

' 'Kay.'

Gabe dug the index finger of his left hand beneath the lowest pipe and felt the hole beneath it. The bottom corner of the black-painted board had been cut away to allow the pipes access so that there was a small space underneath the lower pipe.

'Might work,' he told himself as he hooked his finger around the edge of the wall. Gabe gave the wood a tentative tug and was surprised when the rear wall moved a fraction with a loud crack. He renewed his efforts, pulling harder this time, no longer testing the board's strength, and the crack was as sharp as a starter pistol when the wood came away a few inches. In the beam of his flashlight and through the curls of disturbed dust, Gabe saw that all the sealing paint along the floor and part of one wall had split. Encouraged, and with more space for a better grip, he wrapped his fingers around the edge of the wood and pulled as hard as he could.

The wooden board that served as the cupboard's rear wall suddenly came away with an even fiercer cracking and he realized that it had only been nailed at the sides to long thin stanchions, the nail heads covered by the black paint, making them invisible to the eye.

Cally expelled a frightened cry at the sound and jerked away from the cupboard doorway, her hands flying to her face. Gabe hadn't noticed; he was too busy shining the light through the gap he had made. The partition was still partly attached to the right-hand stanchion, but by holding back the bottom edge and crouching even lower he could see there was something behind the false wall. Something that obviously had been hidden back there.

30: THE PUNISHMENT BOOK

Eve gathered up the two plastic bags full of shopping from the back seat of the Range Rover. She hadn't bought much from the supermarket in Pulvington, but enough to justify her visit to the town. She had been too distracted to concentrate on a full shop, so had bought only essentials that would get her family through the rest of the week. She would tell Gabe the supermarket was too busy and too noisy for her to stay long.

Overhead the sky had clouded up again, dulling the afternoon and promising an early dusk.

She closed the car door with an elbow and, logoed shopping bags in either hand, she made her way across the bridge towards Crickley Hall. There was a thin green slime on some of the damp boards, which made the bridge slippery, and she went with care. The river below looked angry and brown with loose soil that had broken off from the riverbanks further upstream and she wondered how much more rain it would take to make it overflow; she was sure the level had risen since that morning. Halfway across she glanced up at the Hall's rooftop windows as if expecting to see small colourless faces peering down at her. There was nothing there, though; nobody was watching her. Nevertheless, she felt exposed.

Dejected because her visit to the psychic's crafts shop had proved so disappointing, Eve took the path leading across the muddy lawn to the house's front door, her boots crunching on the sparse gravel. Her head was bowed, not with the physical burden of her load, but with the mental burden of her despair. She was helpless, powerless on her own to make the vital contact that she knew her lost son was seeking, unable to complete the telepathic link between them by herself. What could she do now? Consult another psychic? That would take time and there was an urgency in her that she herself did not quite understand. Somehow she knew it was important to find Cam soon, before… before it was too late… She would have to look for another psychic, then.

Perhaps irrationally, she could not face having to explain herself to Gabe. She was only too aware of his frustration with her, no matter how well he concealed it, and she feared that her endeavours now would finally end his patience with her for not coming to terms with their loss. But she would never accept it, not while there was still a chance, not when there were signs…

Eve went past the front door, making for the kitchen door instead, so deep in her own thoughts that she failed to notice Gabe standing by the table through the window. She turned the corner and laid one of the shopping bags on the step so that she could use her key, but Gabe beat her to it.

'Hey,' he greeted, reaching for the shopping bag in her hand. He took it from her, then stooped to collect the other one.

'Hi,' she returned as she stepped inside. 'Has Cally been okay? She didn't bother you while you were working?'

'She's the best, no problem at all. She's taking a nap right now.' Gabe frowned. Eve seemed to be avoiding his eyes as she unzipped her coat and hung it on the rack by the door.

'Chester?' she queried over her shoulder. 'Anything?'

'Uh-uh. Still missing.' He silently cursed himself for using the wrong word: too many connotations. 'I rang the police again, but no stray dog's been spotted or turned in,' he said quickly, to move from the 'missing' word. 'Told me they'd get their patrolman for this area to keep a lookout.'

For the first time she noticed the old gardener sitting quietly and unobtrusively on the other side of the kitchen table. She was feeling too low to be surprised.

Eve greeted him with little enthusiasm. 'Hello, Percy.'

'Missus.' He nodded his head without smiling at her. His cap was in his hands on his lap, but he hadn't removed his storm coat.

'Percy was outside working on the flowerbeds,' said Gabe, 'so I called him in to take a look at this stuff.'

Now Eve saw what was on the kitchen table. Curious, she moved closer.

A book of about the size and proportions of an accountant's ledger lay next to a long wooden stick. Its stiff black cover was dusty—someone, probably Gabe, had obviously wiped it with his hand, for there were streaks across the surface where the black was more intense. The cover's corners were wrinkled, as if battered by wear, and a label, yellow with age, had been glued onto it. Written on the label in neat capital letters that, although faded, were still legible, were the words:

PUNISHMENT BOOK

Eve realized then that the wooden stick lying next to the book was a thin bamboo cane, one end of which was split into even thinner slivers of at least six inches in length. It was the type of cane that in a different era, some teachers used to beat disobedient or unruly schoolchildren. And just in front of Percy, as if he had been studying it before Eve came in, was a creased black and white photograph. But it was the Punishment Book that really drew her attention.

'My God,' she said, 'what is this?'

Gabe waved a hand that took in all the items laid out on the otherwise unoccupied kitchen table. 'It's some interesting stuff I found earlier. Know where they were?' The question was rhetorical; he went on. 'Behind a phoney wall inside the landing closet.'

He told Eve about the now familiar noises he and Cally had heard coming from the upstairs cupboard, the loud knocking sounds, and how he had discovered the black-painted false wall that some time in the past had been used as a hideaway. 'It wasn't very deep, just enough space for the book and cane. Oh, and the photograph over there by Percy.'

Gabe picked up the cane with the split end and sliced it through the air, bringing it down hard on the black-covered book.

Swish-thwack!

Eve flinched at the harsh sound it made. Dust billowed up from the book.

Gabe lifted the bamboo cane again and this time brought it down gently onto the palm of his hand. 'See how the ends splay out when they hit. Now imagine it hard against a kid's hand, or leg, or butt. You'd have to be a sadist to use it.' There was no humour in Gabe's tight-lipped grin.

'Cribben?'

'Yeah, Augustus Theophilus Cribben. Cribben, custodian and headmaster to those evacuees back in '43. This place was supposed to be a safe haven for 'em, out of reach from those German bombs that were blitzing the big cities in the last world war. Huh! Some haven.' Gabe indicated again, this time pointing the cane at the big black book. 'S'all in there, written up, all the things he did to those kids, everything recorded in detail, dates and all.'

Percy spoke up and there was a bitterness to his words. 'The man was evil, cruel. Oh, a good Christian all right, an' highly thought of by some in these parts. But they didn't know, not the authorities, nor our own vicar, who wouldn't listen to me, wouldn't take notice, always insisted Cribben were a God-fearing man who believed in strict discipline for children. Well, Cribben might've been God-fearing, but he were no good! Wrong in the head, to my thinking, righteous but wicked underneath. Him an' his sister both. Magda Cribben was a cold-hearted woman, in her way just as cruel as her brother.'

Percy's pale watery eyes had become moist and they stared straight ahead, looking neither at Eve or Gabe as he remembered the past.

'Nancy told me about the things that went on in Crickley Hall behind closed doors, but I don't think she knew the half of it. Otherwise she'd have done something about the situation. Instead she just up an' left. Or so we was told.'

Now he did look directly at Eve, his eyes troubled. She remembered his tale of Nancy Linnet, the young teacher who had become his sweetheart all those years ago, and Eve couldn't tell if the regret in his eyes was for Nancy and their doomed relationship, or for the children who had suffered so much in this place. She picked up the black book from the table and opened it.

God, Gabe was right, she thought, staring at the neat, rigid handwriting: there were names and dates, punishments accorded as well as the reasons for them, all written down in dulled-by-time blue ink. The reason for punishment was the same in every case: misbehaviour. And as far as Eve could tell, none of the children appeared to have escaped it, for all the names she remembered from the church's memorial board were mentioned, some more than others. And the dates started around late August 1943, apparently soon after the evacuees had arrived at Crickley Hall.

Eve turned several pages, glancing at the names and punishments, the latter of which were marked down 4, 6 or 10, presumably denoting the number of strokes of the cane that were dealt out each time.

'It goes on page after page,' remarked Gabe as he returned the cane to the table. 'Seems not a day went by without some of the kids being disciplined. Percy tells me there were other kinds of penalties for misbehaviour too, like making the kids stand on one spot in the hall all day, wearing nothing but their underwear.'

'Nancy tol' me about the punishments.' Percy shifted awkwardly in his seat. 'She said the children often went without food for the day, or was forced to take cold baths. Sometimes, when Cribben were in a rage, he laid about them with the thick leather belt he always wore, but mostly he used the stick. Nancy tried to put a stop to it, but the Cribbens wouldn't listen, said the kiddies was being purified, atonin' for their sins, like.'

Eve considered the page she had stopped at. This boy Stefan Rosenbaum is mentioned more than most; he seems to be on nearly every page. Didn't you tell me he was Polish and could hardly speak any English? Wasn't he just five years old?'

The old gardener nodded. 'Five years.' Foive yers, it sounded like.

'But why was he punished so much? Was he that naughty?'

'None of 'em was, Missus Caleigh. They was all good kiddies. Bit lively when they first arrived, but that were soon knocked out of 'em. No, Cribben had a special dislikin' for the little Polish boy.'

'Turn towards the middle of the book,' Gabe advised Eve and she did so.

The handwriting had changed: it was looser, sometimes a scrawl, sometimes too big, sometimes almost illegible. Still it went on, though, and she turned more pages, the handwriting changing dramatically as if the author was gradually becoming deranged, the punishments becoming more severe and more frequent. Soon it seemed like the hand of a lunatic. Ten strokes of the cane, fifteen, twenty. And Stefan Rosenbaum's name came up consistently. A five-year-old boy being beaten like this! Why Stefan, why so cruel to him in particular?

As if reading her mind, Gabe said, 'Now move on to some of the later pages. You'll see Cribben's handwriting gets even worse, like he's totally flipped. And you'll see why he picked on this kid Stefan so much.'

Eve leafed through the pages faster, no longer reading each individual record, absorbing the pages as a whole. And then she got to it. The true reason for punishing the same boy over and over again.

The scrawl had descended to an erratic scratching by now. But the word that stunned Eve was clear enough, for it was in spiky capital letters and gave the reason why Stefan Rosenbaum had been constantly punished. It simply said:

JEWBOY

31: THE PHOTOGRAPH

The word had been written crudely, almost brutally, as if its author was enraged—no, was disturbed, mentally disturbed—and the contempt it revealed was so unequivocal that Eve was shocked. She actually gasped.

'How could he…?' The words petered out.

Percy leaned towards her, one bony and calloused hand resting on the table between them. 'There's some people, them what went through the last world war, who like to forget it, don't like to be reminded of how the Jews was hated in them days. Lotsa people even blamed the war on the Jews, thought Hitler had the right idea when he tried to rid Germany an' other countries of 'em. An' that kind of bigotry ran through all classes, rich or poor. Even some royalty shook hands with Hitler afore the war got started.'

'But… but Augustus Cribben was a teacher,' Eve protested. 'And he was a guardian of the children. How could he be a bigot? His background must have been checked by the Ministry of Education and whoever was in charge of evacuation. Surely his sentiments would have been discovered.'

'How?' argued Gabe. 'They'd hardly ask him if he had a thing against Jews, would they? And even if they did, he only had to lie.'

'Oh, Cribben and his sister knew how to play the part, all right,' put in Percy. 'They was admired an' respected when they first came to Hollow Bay. They was looked upon as righteous folk; a little bit unsociable, mind, a little bit standoffish, but otherwise upstanding people as fer as the locals was concerned. Our vicar in them days were certainly impressed with 'em, like I told yer afore, missus. The Cribbens could do no wrong as fer as old Reverend Rossbridger were concerned. That's what broke him when the rumours went about after the flood.'

Eve shook her head in dismay. 'But to victimize this young boy just because he was Jewish. How did Cribben get away with it?'

'Things that went on inside these walls was kep' secret. Who would the kiddies tell? They was kep' away from outsiders an' when they was seen—like goin' to church Sunday mornins—they was always behaved, never spoke to no one. But they couldn't help the way they looked, couldn't hide the misery on their faces. Course, people hereabouts jus' thought the orphans was well disciplined an' didn't look any further than that. Folks didn't want to, the war brought 'em problems of their own.'

Percy's hand dropped to his lap again and he wrung his cap out as if in regret.

'Cribben and his sister, Magda, had the kiddies trained, y'see. Nobody could tell if there were anythin' wrong with 'em, save they was quieter than the local children would ever be. Cribben even had me rig up the swing that's still in the garden today so anyone passin' by would see the kiddies enjoyin' 'emselves. He only let them out there two at a time, mind, an' that were only at weekends. My Nancy told me it were Magda Cribben's idea, lettin' the kids play outside. She knew the things goin' on inside Crickley Hall weren't right, but she supported her brother. Afraid of him too. But her heart were stone. In her own way she were worse then him, 'cause she were a woman an' should've had more compassion for the orphans. Well, she pushed 'em on that swing, only it were like another punishment for 'em when nobody were passin' by. She pushed 'em too hard an' too high, so in the end they was terrified. An' Magda, she liked that, like to see 'em cryin' 'cause they was terrified.'

Eve closed the Punishment Book and put it back on the table. Gabe slipped a hand round her waist, aware of her distress.

'So, they were all badly treated,' she said grimly, 'but little Stefan suffered most of all just because of his race.'

Percy nodded, then picked up the photograph that had been lying on the table in front of him. He held it out to Eve. 'You only had to see Cribben an' his sister to know they was wicked. This were took afore Nancy left Crickley Hall. You can see fer yourself how unhappy the orphans was.'

Eve was almost reluctant to take the photograph; she already had enough grief of her own without looking for more. Her hand trembled slightly as she examined the old creased black-and-white picture, and she realized her heart was racing. It had been a traumatic and disappointing morning, and now this.

Percy came round the table to stand beside her so that he, too, could look at the photograph. Gabe dropped his hand from Eve's waist, although he remained close to her. He had seen the photograph earlier, but he was still drawn towards its images.

It was an eight-by-six print, probably taken with an old-fashioned glass-plate camera, the negative as large as the picture itself, and it showed two rows of children, the taller ones at the back, with two adults sitting on chairs in the centre of the front row. The orphans and their guardians were outside on the lawn, Crickley Hall's big front door plainly visible behind them. The images were extremely sharp and the contrast stark, the black areas quite dense.

Eve suppressed a shudder when she gazed at Augustus Cribben and his sister Magda.

The man could have been anywhere between forty and sixty years of age. His hair, which was bushy on top, but apparently razor-shaved at the sides, was completely white, while his bushy eyebrows were dark. He sat ramrod-straight on his chair, a lean man with high cheekbones that emphasized hollow cheeks. Large ears, accentuated by his cropped hair, stood at right-angles from a severe face. His nose was prominent above a grim slash of a mouth. Beneath those bushy eyebrows were deep-set black eyes that stared stonily at the camera. There was no humour in that harsh, sober face and no softness, and perhaps because of what she already knew of the guardian, there appeared to be no pity.

Cribben wore a tight-fitting tweed suit, one button done up at the chest so that the sides of the jacket fell away to reveal the shiny buckle of a thick leather belt. His shoulders were narrow and the hands that rested over his knees were big-knuckled, arthritic-looking. The tidy knot of his plain tie did not quite reach the stud of the high, white, detachable collar of his striped shirt; the jaw above the collar was strong and square, although the little that could be seen of his neck was thin and scrawny.

Next to this slight yet formidable figure sat a hard-faced woman, who presumably was Cribben's sister, Magda. There was a resemblance between them, for the eyes were black and deep-set, and seemed to regard the camera with suspicion. Like her brother's, Magda's nose was prominent, as was her chin, and her lips were thin and severe. High cheekbones and rigidity of posture completed the similarity.

Her matt black hair was parted in the middle and scraped back over her ears, presumably into a bun at the back of her neck. She wore a long black dress that was gathered at the waist, and hemmed just above black lace-up ankle boots.

Eve allowed her eyes to roam away from Augustus Cribben and his sister, both of whom seemed to dominate the assemblage, and they fell upon the girl—the young woman—at the end of the back row.

'Is this the teacher you told me about?' she asked Percy, her thumb indicating. 'You called her Nancy…'

'Aye, that's Nancy Linnet, may her poor soul rest in peace.'

'You think she is dead?'

'I know she is.'

Eve looked at the girl whose shiny hair fell in tumbling locks round a sweet childlike face. Over her shoulders she wore a shawl, the ends of which covered her forearms, and Eve remembered Percy telling her that the teacher, his sweetheart, had a withered arm: was Nancy deliberately covering up the deformity? The teacher's eyes were large and pale and, although she wasn't smiling, there was no meanness in them—but no joy either.

In fact, no one in the photograph was smiling. All the children were like little waifs, solemn before the camera, no spirit to their expressions or their stance. But wait—there was one boy with not a smile but a grin on his long face that revealed a missing front tooth. He stood at the back near the middle of the line and was taller than all the other children, as tall as Nancy Linnet.

Eve pointed as she angled the photograph towards the old gardener. 'Is this the boy called…' She tried to recall the name Percy had mentioned.

'Maurice Stafford,' Percy replied. 'Yers, he could afford to smile, that boy.'

'He's the only one who looks happy,' observed Gabe, leaning over Eve's shoulder.

Percy nodded. 'His is the only name yer won't find in that Punishment Book. He were old for his age, he were, and the only one that Nancy never liked, said he were a sneak and a bully. Maurice were treated different from the others. I don't say he had it easy, but fer some reason Cribben an' his sister favoured him.'

'Which one is the Jewish boy Stefan?' Eve asked, although she was sure she had already spotted him.

Percy confirmed her choice. 'Right there in the front row, the smallest of 'em all. He's standin' in front of the tall girl, Susan Trainer, who looked out for the boy, sorta took him under her wing, like. See, she's got her hand on his shoulder.'

Stefan Rosenbaum wore baggy short trousers that covered his knees, his socks round his ankles. He was a thin child and his jacket, which was done up at the front with three buttons, was at least two sizes too big for him. His thick dark hair hung low over his brow and his eyes were wonderfully deep but melancholy. He had an elfin look. Like the other orphans, his face was solemn, yet there was a beauty about him that reminded Eve of her lost son, Cameron. Even though this boy was dark in looks where Cam was fair—yellow hair, bright blue eyes—they both possessed the same kind of innocence. As renewed despair struck her, she quickly gave the photograph back to Percy. She turned towards Gabe who, although taken aback, held her gently.

To Percy, he said: 'Those two kids—what was it, Maurice…?'

'Stafford,' the aged gardener filled in for him.

'Right. Maurice Stafford. I don't remember seeing his name, nor Stefan Rosenbaum's, among the headstones down at the cemetery.'

'No, yer wouldn't. It's 'cause they was the two whose bodies was never found. It's reckoned they were swept out to sea by the river that runs underneath Crickley Hall. The Low River.' Percy shook his head gravely. 'They jus' disappeared,' he said. 'The sea never gave 'em up.'

32: LILI PEEL

Lili brought the glass to her lips and swallowed the wine rather than sipped. Its fruity sweetness failed to elevate her mood.

The room in which she sat was lit by only a single corner lamp, so that shadows filled the other corners. Her living quarters were above the crafts shop: three main rooms, one of them a bedroom, another, the smallest, used as a stockroom for goods not yet displayed in the shop downstairs; the third was her living/dining room where she relaxed or worked on delicate stone, shell or crystal jewellery and trinkets, using the dining table as a workbench. Both the kitchen and bathroom were tiny, the latter accommodating a small sink, toilet and shower basin (there was no room for a bath). The walls throughout were painted in soft pastel shades, and oddly, given Lili's profession, there were no pictures adorning them, nor ornaments or statuary on shelves to take away from the plainness of it all.

Listlessly, she rested the stem of the wine glass on the arm of the brown leather chair she occupied and closed her eyes for a moment.

Why did this woman have to come to her? she silently asked herself with a bitter kind of anger.

Lili had curbed her psychic abilities eighteen months ago, frightened by her own powers and their consequences. Some things were best left well alone; some things could bite back. How strange that the woman, this Eve Caleigh, should come from the same house that Lili had stopped to observe on her way out of Hollow Bay two years ago. Crickley Hall. People in these parts maintained it was haunted, the woman in the village shop had confided. The two women who cleaned and dusted the place every month would only work the rooms together; neither one was willing to be alone in any part of the house. They claimed that Crickley Hall had an 'atmosphere', a creepy mood to it that made a person feel jittery. That was why no tenants had ever stayed long in it over the years. The house didn't welcome people.

At the time, Lili had mentally rolled her eyes. It seemed to her that every community postulated its own haunted house and it was usually for no other reason than that something tragic or traumatic had once occurred within its walls (often a cruel murder or a dramatic suicide) and now a ghost roamed its corridors. In truth, Lili did believe in ghosts because of her own experiences with the supernatural, but she also knew that many people exaggerated or embellished such phenomena for the vicarious thrill that came with the telling.

Nonetheless, Lili had not just noticed Crickley Hall when she left the harbour village, as she had told Eve Caleigh. No, she had parked her car and studied the house across the bridge for several minutes. She had sensed its chill.

It was not merely the ugliness of the building itself that weighed upon her, but it was because there seemed to be—or at least, she sensed—something bad at its very core. The unease remained with her for some time afterwards.

That was one of the more unpleasant sides of being psychic: the inability to prevent bad vibes from penetrating one's own psyche. It was an affliction she had borne since childhood.

Lili first became aware of her sixth sense when she was seven years old, although there may well have been earlier psychic occurrences that she regarded as perfectly natural when she was even younger. She had moved with her family into a large Victorian house in Reigate, Surrey, and her bedroom had been at the very top of the three-floor building. Soon after moving in, the spirit of a girl, no more than nine or ten years old in appearance, had manifested itself as Lili played with her dolls in her bedroom. Although so young—or perhaps because she was so young—Lili had immediately, and without any fear, accepted that the girl, who wore old-fashioned clothing, was neither of Lili's own world, nor of her own time. It was all perfectly reasonable to her, even though she could not recall any similar event in her past. Being an only child, she welcomed this new playmate into her home. The stranger never touched anything of Lili's, but would sit attentively on her heels while Lili showed and named every one of her dolls and cuddly fur animals and related little stories about them. Sometimes Lili sang her ethereal friend a short song and then the other girl would sing one of her own. Some of these Lili had heard before, for many nursery rhymes are timeless.

The girl informed Lili that she was called Agnes and that she had died in this same room from something they called diphtheria a long time ago, and ever since she'd been dead, she hadn't known where she was supposed to go. Her death had been sudden after only four days of the illness and she had risen from her proper body to see her mother wailing on her knees beside the bed as her father stood stiffly by with just one teardrop running down his cheek. Agnes had been confused and frightened for a long while afterwards and she had not dared to leave the house for fear of becoming lost. She had gradually come to accept her condition and, although no longer afraid, she still preferred to keep within the walls of the only home she had ever known.

Eventually, her parents went away and other families lived there for long intervals at a time. But none had ever noticed her, even though she had done her best to make them aware. Lili was the only person Agnes had been able to talk to and be seen by, and she was pleased finally to have a companion.

Lili's parents had often heard her talking to an invisible friend in her room and they questioned their daughter about it. In her innocence, Lili had told the truth. Her mother and father, however, assumed the girl wearing old-fashioned clothing was inside Lili's own head, a figment of her lively imagination, and had left it at that, believing she would soon grow out of it. After all, lots of little children had imaginary friends, didn't they?

For at least six weeks the ghost of the Victorian girl continued to appear to Lili, always when she was by herself and in the same upstairs room. They played and giggled together, enjoying each other's company, although Lili sometimes became frustrated because Agnes could never catch a ball, or use a skipping rope, or pick up a toy. Apart from that, they got along fine.

It was only when Lili told her spectral friend about a place called Heaven that there came about a subtle change in Agnes. Lili's daddy had told her this was where the angels lived and where good people who had died went to. Agnes's image began to falter; she was not so clearly defined any more. Still they continued to play together, until one day, soon after she had learned about Heaven, Agnes declared she had two important questions to ask Lili: 'Shouldn't I be in Heaven too? Am I a bad person?'

Lili had readily assured Agnes that she was a good person, otherwise Lili wouldn't have liked her. And yes, probably she should go up to Heaven, although Lili would miss her terribly.

The Victorian girl came back to Lili only once more after that and Lili could barely see her, so transparent had Agnes become. She told Lili that she kept hearing someone calling her and that she could feel herself slipping away. She implored Lili not to be sorrowful if she left because Agnes would always remember her. She said she had the same sort of feeling when Father used to tell her that they were all going on a journey; she felt happy because she knew they would travel to somewhere that was different and exciting, but sorry because she always hated leaving her lovely home. So she felt happy and sad at the same time. But she wasn't afraid any more, not since Lili had told her about Heaven.

The voice she heard calling her had become very strong, though oddly never loud, and she felt a presence, as if someone were waiting for her in the same house but in another room.

At first, Lili had asked Agnes not to leave, because they were friends and she would be lonely without her. But soon she realized that Agnes wanted with all her heart to go to the place she felt sure was Heaven. Even that young, Lili knew it would be selfish of her to beg Agnes to stay and she truly wanted what was best for her friend.

The apparition of the young girl from another era dimmed even more before Lili's eyes, and then something wonderful happened.

A tiny, brilliantly radiant light, round and no bigger than a marble, entered the room through the closed door. Swiftly the remnants of Agnes's fading form became nothing but a radiant light too. The little brightly glowing ball of light that was now Agnes hovered in front of Lili for a few seconds, and then it glided towards the other light; they joined, fused together, became incandescent. For a brief moment their shine was dazzling, lighting up the whole room with their effulgence and causing Lili to blink. When her eyes opened again, the coalescent glow was gone. And curiously, although Lili would miss Agnes, she felt nothing but joy for her.

Lili Peel had never forgotten that first experience of the supernatural. Certainly, she had seen other ghosts since then, but nothing compared to the beautiful fusion she had witnessed, or the deep sense of calming peace she had felt that day. She would never forget her friend Agnes.

Over the years, Lili's extrasensory capabilities revealed themselves and developed, much to her parents' amazement and concern. How she had acquired such a gift was a mystery to them for, to their knowledge, nobody in their families' history had ever possessed these kinds of powers.

One night at the age of twelve she had burst into the kitchen in floods of tears, alarming her mother and father, who were having a late-night snack. Through her sobs she managed to tell them that Uncle Peter, who was abroad at the time, had just died. Nothing could console her—certainly not common sense—but in the early hours of the following morning her father received a phone call from South Africa informing him that his brother had been killed in a car accident the previous night.

At thirteen, Lili had a talent for finding lost or forgotten household articles and for knowing the exact location of neighbourhood dogs and cats that had strayed from their homes. By fifteen, she had the weird ability to discover facts about a person merely by touching or holding inanimate objects associated with them. When she was seventeen and attending art college, she had become adept at telepathy, psychometry and clairvoyancy, and her reputation as a psychic had grown. Soon she was giving 'readings' not only for friends and family, but also for perfect strangers who had heard of her reputation.

She did not often communicate with the deceased, but when she did, the results could sometimes be startling. Because the bereaved took comfort in such sessions, Lili continued with them, but limited her sittings to just once a week, for they also left her totally drained afterwards. However, if distraught parents begged her to contact their recently demised son or daughter, she would invariably oblige. Because of Agnes, Lili could never refuse to help where a spirit-child was involved.

But all that was long before the incident. It was before she was frightened of what she might conjure when calling on the dead.

•

Crickley Hall. A tomb of a place. A mausoleum. Unwelcoming, somehow hostile.

It may have just been the chill of her sitting room, but Lili gave a little shiver. Driven raindrops tapped on the window behind her like a thousand fingernails.

Again she asked herself why Eve Caleigh had come to her for help. Why now when Lili was still struggling to make herself immune from the past? It had been eighteen months since the incident and still she had not recovered, had not been able to close her mind to it. Why wouldn't the woman understand that Lili no longer wanted to use her psychic powers? Why had she persisted so? And why did she have to tell her of the child spirits trapped inside Crickley Hall? For that was what they were—trapped souls that could not move on. All ghosts that lingered in places they had known when alive were just souls that had lost their way, or were tied to the earthly plane by incompleteness, or by some traumatic experience, that left them shocked, even in death.

But Eve Caleigh was only interested in finding her missing son, a boy who had been gone for a whole year. Why did she believe her son was alive when there was no evidence to prove it? No sightings, no ransom notes, and from what Lili could gather, no suspects either. Yet she maintained that he was trying to communicate with her in some telepathic way. Could that really be so? It was not unusual for many mothers to have a special intuition where their children were concerned, there was nothing too peculiar about that. But then, even if the boy were still alive, could Lili find him?

Perhaps if she had an article of his clothing, or a favourite toy, something—anything—he was familiar with. No! Stop it! It would be plain stupid of her to deliberately start using her extrasensory abilities again. Often it couldn't be controlled, sometimes thoughts just entered her mind, feelings arrived unbidden, but now she knew there could be danger in just that. Opening herself to the spirit world could leave her vulnerable and she had vowed never to let that happen again. Not after last time.

Yet there were still the other children to consider, the orphans Eve Caleigh said had drowned in Crickley Hall all those years ago. It was no wonder that the old house exuded such a negative aura, such a dreadful gloom. It was obvious to Lili that the children were bound to the house by something awful that had happened to them there. That is, of course, if what Eve Caleigh had told her was true. Not that she would have lied—what would be the point?—but if she was still so distressed over the loss of her son—overwrought and close to hysteria, it seemed to Lili—then what might be going on in her imagination?

But… Lili bit into the corner of her lower lip. But alive or dead, there was a child involved. And just maybe other children too, young orphans who, according to Eve Caleigh, were haunting the house. Something must be preventing them from passing over. Something about Crickley Hall was stopping them from resting in peace.

When she had paused to look at the big house across the river two years ago she had sensed a conflict within its solid walls, for something seemed to reach out and touch her, something indefinable that called without voice but whose beckoning left her shaking with fear. She had watched Crickley Hall—yes, watched it as if it would suddenly disclose the dark secrets she knew it held—and the tension that gripped her stayed with her for days.

Now Eve Caleigh wanted her to go back there, to return to a place that had made her tremble. But could she deny the woman her help? And if she did help her, would Lili be inviting back the horror that had manifested during her last séance? The psychic never wanted that to happen again.

33: FIFTH NIGHT

It had been a good day for Loren.

Now she was tucked up in bed reading her new Philip Pullman, Cally fast asleep in the bed next to her. Loren laid the book down on her lap for a moment and smiled to herself.

The news was all around school. The new girl had bopped Seraphina Blaney on the nose. Loren had become something of a celebrity, because nobody in their year, all eleven- and twelve-year-olds, had ever had the courage to stand up to the bully before, and certainly no one had ever punched her! A lot of the girls had chatted to Loren today, plying her with questions about the incident on the bus, which Tessa Windle had duly reported to her classmates, who had spread the word so that by the end of breaktime most years knew about it. At lunch, some of the older girls and boys even said 'Hi' to Loren. In truth, she had been nervous of coming in to school today, because she'd had a whole night to think about what she had done. What if Seraphina intended to get her own back? What if she were waiting for Loren on the bus when it picked her up on the way to Merrybridge? Loren wasn't kidding herself that it was anything more than a lucky punch yesterday; Seraphina would be well over her shock by now and might be looking for revenge. Loren wasn't sure she had the nerve to do the same thing again.

Fortunately, something good had happened: Seraphina hadn't turned up for school that morning. Loren had been so relieved that she'd felt light-headed for most of the day. Perhaps she'd broken the big girl's nose. If so, would her parents complain to Mr Horkins, the headmaster, or go straight to Crickley Hall and make a fuss? Even worse, they might have gone to the police and made a complaint. Loren had half-expected a policeman to turn up at school to arrest her! As the day went by though, nothing had happened and Loren's nerves had begun to settle. Everyone had been so nice to her, with Tessa being particularly friendly, and Loren thought she might start to like Merrymiddle.

Yawning, Loren closed her book, first marking her page with a Post-it, then putting it aside on the bedside cabinet. Eyelids already drooping, she reached up and switched off the lamp Dad had put there, and lay flat on her back. She pulled the duvet up over her chin and around her ears, and stared at the ceiling, the only illumination coming through the half-open door from the dull landing light.

Her weary eyes remained open for a short while as she wondered why she always felt so tired in the evenings nowadays. She even woke up tired, but was okay once she got to school and mixed with the other pupils. And she'd be fine for the rest of the day; it was only when she got home that she began to feel worn out.

It was this house. This house made her tired, with its chill and its draughts, and its weirdness. Just thinking about how tired she was caused her to yawn once more.

Rain lightly struck the window. She liked hearing the rain when she was all snuggled up in a warm bed. Why was Crickley Hall always cold despite the radiators and the fires Dad lit in different rooms?

Loren turned onto her side and shut her eyes. She could hear Cally's gentle snores.

As she fell asleep she was thinking of Chester. She hoped he wasn't out in the rain somewhere. She hoped someone had found him and taken him into their nice warm home. Don't worry about Chester, Dad had said. He's a smart cookie, he'll have found somewhere cosy… Loren slept.