Property of a Lady(10)
Still, it’s very unlikely there’s anything in the least paranormal or supernatural here. It’s my belief that all but a tiny percentage of so-called ghosts are due to one of three causes, and I’ll set those three causes down here, just for the record.
The first and most common cause of ‘hauntings’ is man-made: spoofs done for money or malice or to gain a rather shallow fame. If I sat down to make a list of all the fraudsters the society has uncovered— Well, life’s too short.
The second biggest cause of ghost-sightings is self-delusion or self-mesmerism – not necessarily conscious, but often infectious. ‘I see a white figure,’ cries someone, with such conviction that everyone else in the room instantly sees a white figure as well.
My third belief is contentious, but, put simply, I think strong emotions can leave an imprint on a place. Like entering a room and knowing that, despite the polite manner of the occupants, minutes earlier a vicious, cat-spitting row was in progress.
I’ve posited that last theory many times when I’ve lectured, and every time I do so, I remember how it’s said that in Hiroshima the white-hot radiation of the atom bomb pasted the shapes of men’s shadows on to walls, so that you could still see those shapes in the ruins years afterwards. When I think about that, I remember the young army captain with the slow smile who was stationed in Hiroshima, and how, if he had come back, we would have been married. Is his shadow imprinted on some shattered wall, I wonder? It’s absurdly sentimental to think that, but there are times when I do, even now, nearly twenty years on. (And if anyone reads this and thinks the smudge on the page is due to a tear, let me state categorically that it isn’t. It’s whisky from the flask in my suitcase. There’s nothing wrong with a little tot of whisky on these expeditions, although it’s not advisable to get roaring drunk, of course.)
Anyhow, to conclude, what I do not believe is all that stuff about the fabric of time wearing thin, and it being possible to sometimes look through to other ages. (Except that if it were possible, Charect House would be the one place where I’d be able to do it.)
8 p.m.
Supper an hour ago in the Black Boar’s minuscule dining room. Plain cut off the joint and vegetables. Perfectly adequate. I’m not one for fussed-up food.
I had a glass of beer in the bar afterwards. The local stuff is so fierce that it would peel varnish from wood, but I wanted to get into conversation with one or two of the locals. That’s always useful for picking up fragments of gossip. If ghosts are likely to walk anywhere, they’ll generally walk in a public house where the drink’s flowing. They’ll often take up permanent residence at the bar if you aren’t careful.
I was ready to insert a carefully-prepared mention of Charect House into the casual bar-room conversation. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance. It seems a local child is missing, and the men were assembling in the bar to help with the search.
‘Evie Blythe,’ said one of them when I asked. ‘Only seven, poor little mite. Been gone since yesterday afternoon.’
‘How dreadful. Do they think she’s been taken by someone?’
‘That’s the concern. Don’t seem very likely, though. We don’t get much crime in Marston Lacy. Bit of drunk driving, the occasional housebreaking. Not many kidnappings. Still, there’re peculiar folk around these days.’
An extremely elderly gentleman seated in a corner, mumbling beer and crisps through an overgrown beard, was understood to say there was evil everywhere in the world and always had been, you had only to read your Bible to know that. Sin and lipstick and modern music, that was where all the blame lay. He showed signs of becoming loquacious until somebody took another pint of beer over to him.
A couple of policemen came in and spread out maps of the area. They divided the terrain and assigned two men to search each section. Torches were distributed, and the Black Boar’s manager came in with flasks of coffee for the searchers to take with them. I would have offered my help if it had been likely to do any good – appalling to think of a small child lost and helpless somewhere in the dark, or, God forbid, at the mercy of some pervert. But I had no knowledge of the area, and they weren’t likely to trust a complete stranger.
But when the sergeant started telling the men to be sure to investigate all empty houses, I thought it advisable to enter the conversation and explain my presence. The customary reaction is usually derision or contempt. Men mostly laugh patronizingly, and women either shriek with pretended fear or want to involve you in intense conversations so they can relate their own encounters with the paranormal.
Marston Lacy behaved slightly differently. At mention of the house’s name, an unmistakable stir of unease went through the listeners – exactly like one of those hammy horror films where the traveller enters the wayside tavern and innocently asks for directions to Castle Dracula. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Black Boar’s inhabitants had pelted me with garlic or started drawing pentacles on the floor.
The sergeant was made of stern stuff, however. He merely said, ‘Ah yes, Charect House. Got a bad reputation, that old place.’
‘So I believe.’
‘I’d better have a note of your address, if I may, miss. Just routine, you know.’
I supplied my name and address and added, perhaps slightly maliciously, that Mr Joseph Lloyd at the council offices would vouch for me. (He’ll hate it if the police do contact him and he has to admit the local authority called in a ghost-hunter! That’s a thought that gives me immense pleasure.)