Property of a Lady(33)

‘I think it’s probably better not.’

‘All right. Michael, is it possible that Ellie has read the Ingoldsby Legends?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘I’m as sure as I can be that Beth hasn’t.’ Nell drank the remains of her coffee, then said, ‘That grave where you found her. Whose grave was it?’

‘I didn’t notice. It was quite an old one, though.’

For a moment Nell wanted to believe it did not matter whose grave it had been. But those two other girls had been found in that churchyard, and supposing they had been on the same grave . . . ?

She looked at Michael, willing him to follow her thoughts. It seemed he did, because he said, ‘What time are you collecting Beth tomorrow?’

‘They said any time after ten. Ward rounds and discharge procedure have to be dealt with first, I think. So I was going to get there for about quarter past.’

‘It’s only three or four miles to St Paul’s Church. Shall I pick you up at half past eight tomorrow morning?’

‘I could do it on my own,’ began Nell.

‘Wouldn’t it be easier if you had someone with you?’

‘I suppose so. Yes, of course it would. Thank you.’

‘In the meantime,’ he said, picking up Alice Wilson’s journal and reaching for the laptop, ‘I’ll take the ghosts back to the Black Boar.’





ELEVEN




After Michael had gone, Nell rinsed the coffee things, then fell into bed and went instantly into a deep, more or less dreamless, sleep. She woke at seven to the sound of birdsong, and remembered that Beth was all right and in just over three hours she would be home. She smiled, planning how she would make all Beth’s favourite things for lunch, then remembered about meeting Michael and leapt out of bed and headed for the shower.

Michael phoned shortly after eight, to say he would pick her up in twenty minutes if that was all right.

‘Fine. I’ll look out for you and come straight down.’

‘Did you sleep? And is Beth all right this morning?’

‘Bright as a button.’ Nell had phoned the hospital at twenty to eight and the staff nurse had said Beth was about to eat breakfast and was looking forward to coming home.

As they drove down the High Street, Michael said, ‘I read Alice Wilson’s journal. It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? Once I started I had to read all the way through to the end – it was nearly one a.m. before I finished it. It’s classic ghost stuff, of course – those three knocks on the door. In fact—’

‘What?’

‘Only that I thought I heard someone knocking the first time I was there,’ he said. ‘It was probably something outside, but it was very macabre.’

Nell said, ‘It was the part where she talked about hearing things not meant for human ears I found so chilling.’

‘The whispering of wolves and of demons,’ he said, half to himself. ‘Alice wrote very vividly, didn’t she?’

‘You think it might all be a form of fiction?’

‘I’d have to have known her before judging that,’ he said. ‘But if it was fiction, it was a peculiar way of writing it.’

‘And let’s remember she hid it in the clock,’ said Nell. ‘If you were writing fiction, surely you wouldn’t do that?’

‘It might have been part of the plan,’ he said.

‘But she put it there forty-odd years ago,’ pointed out Nell. ‘That’d be a very long-term plan. I do take your point, though. An intriguing old manuscript coming to light in an empty house . . . And clocks are often in ghost stories. They’re like cats and mirrors and mountains. They have a secret life of their own.’

‘Alice didn’t sound as if she’d be devious in that way, did she?’ said Michael. ‘If she wanted to write a ghost story, I have the feeling she’d have bombarded publishers.’

‘I rather liked the sound of her,’ said Nell. ‘I’d like to know what happened to her. It’s a pity Wilson is a fairly common surname – it might be difficult to trace. I wondered if it might be possible to find out more about the society she belonged to.’

‘Psychic investigation,’ said Michael, thoughtfully.

‘She called it the Society for Psychic Research,’ said Nell. ‘Which might have been its exact name or just her own shorthand. And there must have been dozens of psychic research set-ups around then – well, there’re probably dozens now.’

‘If the local council called her in, there might be correspondence with an address in their files,’ said Michael thoughtfully.

‘I wouldn’t bank on it. I found a few letters when I was trying to trace Charect House’s previous owners for Liz Harper,’ said Nell. ‘I was looking through land registration documents and transfer of titles, and there were three or four letters written to Alice by someone from the council – asking her to come to Marston Lacy to investigate the house. I think they’d got into the file by mistake. There was a note of exasperation in them, as if the council was only doing it as a last resort. I don’t think there was an address.’

‘I’ll bet the council destroyed anything official and missed those,’ said Michael. ‘Can you imagine any local authority admitting it employed a ghost-hunter?’