The Secrets Of Ghosts

Katie didn’t know why she suddenly felt so uneasy. She told herself she was tired and a bit miserable, but it didn’t help. She felt a blast of cold air on her back and turned to see who had opened the door. It was shut.

Katie readjusted her grip on her tray and forced herself to walk down the hallway. There were muffled voices from behind one of the closed doors, the muted sounds of a television from another. Katie willed her heart to stop beating quite so fast and tried to laugh at herself. She was being ridiculous. She was Katie Harper and a little cold breeze wasn’t going to make her twitchy.

The Yellow Room was the last door and she wedged the tray against her body so that she could hold it with one hand and knock with the other.

No answer.

She knocked again, and called out in a chirpy, ‘I’m here to help!’ voice: ‘Room service.’ The door wasn’t locked properly and it swung open.

Katie edged into the room, keeping her gaze lowered in case something private was happening. ‘Hello? Is everything all right? Shall I just leave the tray—?’

She caught sight of something in her peripheral vision. A man was lying on the polished hardwood floor. His tie askew.

‘Sir? Are you all right, sir? Mr Cole?’

There was something about the way the man was lying. His absolute stillness. Katie knew without touching him that his skin would be cold. In fact, cool air seemed to be spreading outwards so that Katie could feel it even where she was standing. She put the tray down on the floor with a clatter and stepped over it to kneel down next to the man. ‘Mr Cole? Can you hear me? Are you all right?’

She touched his arm then, remembering first-aid lessons at school, pressed two fingers to the side of his neck. He was cold. Really cold. Just-come-out-of-the-freezer cold. His eyes were wide open and his expression fixed in a way that Katie knew that she would never, ever forget.

The coolness travelled up her fingers from where she’d pressed them against the man’s skin and she just had time to think that he shouldn’t be that cold, that it wasn’t right, when she felt an icy stillness spread up her arm and across her chest, making her breathing suddenly slow. Soon, every part of her body was chilled and her scalp was prickling. She tried to move away, but her strength had gone. One moment she was kneeling upright next to the dead man, her hand at his neck, and the next instant she was slumped sideways and unable to move. Mr Cole’s head was uncomfortably close. Through the horrible numbing cold, she felt revulsion and fear. She wanted to move away, but couldn’t. She wanted to shut her eyes, to stop seeing his face, but she couldn’t do that either. She felt as if her eyelids were frozen in place. From her angle on the floor, Mr Cole’s face was in profile, and the terror and panic just as obvious. He looked as if his worst nightmare had risen up in front of him.

Katie felt a surge of panic. She still couldn’t move and the cold was bringing back terrible memories. Not again, she thought. Not again. There had been a time. One very bad time when she’d felt a similar draining of control. A time when she’d stumbled out in the snow, drunk and crying and something else besides. She had felt herself dissolve, her will liquid and useless, and she’d vowed never again. As the cold slowed her thoughts further, she fought against it. Imagined pinching herself, imagined the pain she’d feel, and willed it to keep her conscious and rational. She stared at the pores on Mr Cole’s face and tried to remember. She hadn’t done any magic; she was sure of that. Hadn’t tried any for months, now. The weakness was spreading. She wanted to sleep so badly, to stop thinking, and now her vision was fading. She heard a voice say, ‘Oh, Christ,’ and she thought, It’s okay, someone’s come, and the last of her strength disappeared and the world went black.

Chapter 2

Katie opened her eyes and light flooded in. A blurred circle of white gradually resolved into a face. Brown hair flopping forwards over unfamiliar features. After a moment, the nose stopped dancing, three eyes became two and the mouth pulled into a worried line. At once, she realised who was leaning over her: the good-looking wedding guest. The one she’d thought didn’t belong.

‘Oh, thank Christ,’ he said, sitting back on his heels. ‘You’re alive.’

Katie moved her head and saw that she was still lying next to the dead man. She struggled to sit up and the young guy lunged forwards. ‘You shouldn’t do that. You might have hurt your back or neck or something.’

‘I didn’t fall,’ Katie managed. Her voice hurt her head, which was already pounding. It made it difficult to think clearly. She could move, though. She stretched out an arm, flexed her fingers.

‘Look…’ he was standing up, now ‘…I’ve got to go. I’ll send someone up here.’

Katie was trying to unscramble her thoughts. She’d come in and seen the man and then she’d passed out. No, she’d knelt down and touched the man and then she’d felt very weak. She looked up, wincing as the pendant light shone too brightly into her eyes.

The good-looking man was at the door, hesitating. ‘You’re okay, now,’ he said, as if reassuring himself.

‘He isn’t,’ Katie said pointing at the man. They had to call an ambulance. He was past that, of course, but still. Suddenly, she realised she was going to be sick. She got to her feet and, the room spinning wildly, made it into the en suite to throw up in the sink.

When she came out the man had gone, but she heard footsteps in the corridor.

*

Later, she sat in the public lounge with a sweet cup of tea and a female police officer. Either an autopilot setting had kicked in, or she was still spaced from fainting, but she was calm and methodical as she told the officer what she’d seen. A second track of her mind was running its own commentary. Katie expected it to be shocked and sad and all the things she imagined to be normal human reactions, but instead it thought: Well, at least my birthday will be memorable for something.

Katie closed her eyes. She was a bad, bad person.

Jo came out of the kitchen, still in her chef’s whites, and gave her a hug. Jo nodded to the police officer, then looked into Katie’s face. ‘You okay?’

Katie nodded. ‘Just a bit of a shock. I’m fine.’

Jo squeezed her shoulder. ‘You should be at home.’ She glanced at the officer whose name Katie had already managed to forget. ‘Don’t keep her hanging about, will you? It’s not right.’

The female officer had a monotone voice, as if she were reading from an autocue and wasn’t very good at it. ‘There is a procedure that we have to follow.’

‘I’m fine,’ Katie said, before Jo could tell the police what she thought of their procedure. She rustled up a smile for Jo, who gave the officer one last long look before walking away.

‘So,’ the officer said, seemingly unaffected by Jo’s display of concern. ‘Do you remember seeing anything out of the ordinary tonight?’

‘No, nothing,’ Katie said. ‘I mean, apart from the man. Mr Cole.’

‘We’re talking to all the members of the wedding party and the staff, but is there anybody else who may have had contact with Mr or Mrs Cole this evening?’

The chicken thief. Oh, bugger. If her hunch was correct and he’d crashed the wedding, he wouldn’t be listed as a guest. Did that matter, though? She hadn’t seen him talking to Mr Cole, although he had been upstairs in the hotel, where he’d had no business to be. On the other hand, bringing him into the conversation would delay the interview and she really wanted to go home.

While she dithered, the police officer continued her list of questions. ‘Any loud disagreements, anybody acting strangely?’

‘It was a wedding,’ Katie said, wondering if her face had betrayed her. ‘Define “strange”.’

Patrick Allen strode into the room and straight up to the senior policeman who was conducting an interview at a nearby sofa. ‘I came as soon as I could. I own The Grange.’

The detective stood up and they shook hands. Katie had inherited a less-than-positive opinion of Patrick Allen from her aunt Gwen, but at that moment she felt sorry for the man. His hair was sticking up at the back as if he’d got out of bed to come to the hotel and he looked grey with concern. Maybe he wasn’t the heartless suit Gwen had always described him as.

‘We’re not a chain,’ Patrick was saying. ‘We can’t take this kind of publicity, and in this financial climate...’ He seemed under the impression that the detective was a journalist. ‘I don’t want a circus.’

‘There is no reason for alarm, sir,’ the detective said. He started to say something about it looking ‘very routine’ but they moved away as they were speaking and Katie didn’t catch it properly.

‘Miss Harper.’ The police lady opposite was leaning forward, her notebook balanced on one knee. ‘Can I ask you again to think if you saw the deceased argue with anybody this evening?’

Katie snapped back to the conversation. ‘Wasn’t it a heart attack or something? Why are you asking that?’

‘We don’t know the cause of death at this time and we need to get as complete a picture as possible of Mr Cole’s last few hours.’

Those words — ‘last few hours’ — flipped a switch inside Katie and, at once, she felt incredibly sad. That man, Oliver Cole, ate his salmon starter and drank the over-priced fizzy wine and chatted to people with no idea that he was enjoying the very last few hours of his existence. She reached into her shirt and touched her necklace as another thought hit her: with the Harper family intuition, would she be as clueless? Iris certainly seemed very prepared for her passing: she’d sorted out her journals, left notes for Gwen... But was that better? Preferable? How did it feel when you knew exactly how many more seconds there were to go on the clock? Suddenly, Katie really wanted to get out of the overly warm living room. She wanted to go back to her flat and sleep for a day. Maybe two. She focused on the policewoman, who was looking a bit irritated. ‘That’s everything I can tell you. It’s time to wrap this up.’

The woman’s eyes slid over Katie’s face as if searching for purchase. Then she said: ‘It’s probably about time to wrap this up. If you think of anything else, anything at all—’ She held out a business card.

‘I’ll call you,’ Katie said, getting up. She walked swiftly out of the room before the policewoman regained her senses and went to the staff room to collect her denim jacket and bag. Katie felt shaky. For a horrible moment she’d thought the policewoman had been going to ignore her suggestion. Light distraction or suggestion was one of the basic skills of the Harper women, as natural and easy as telling a white lie or reading cards to help a friend make a decision. It was one of the first hints that she was a Harper, turning up when she was just fourteen, and as much a part of her as the colour of her hair. What if each skill were stripped away until there was nothing left? What if, rather than coming into her true power, she was experiencing the disintegration of the abilities she already had?

The staff entrance was behind the kitchen so she said goodbye to Jo on her way through.

‘You sure you’re all right?’ Jo frowned at her, her pixie-cropped hair sticking up at odd angles where she’d had her hat pinned all evening. ‘Here.’ Jo disappeared inside her walk-in fridge and returned with half a cheesecake on a cling-filmed plate.

‘Thank you.’ Katie was touched by Jo’s kindness and it made her want to cry. She got out of the kitchen before Jo could see her eyes filling up, but it was a close-run thing.

The hot weather was holding and the night air was freakishly warm, even though it was past eleven o’clock. The curtains in the hotel were drawn and blocks of red-tinged light hit the gravel that circled the house, but the driveway was a pitch-black tunnel. She’d told Patrick last year that he needed to put more of the solar ground lights along it but he clearly hadn’t been listening. As soon as she stepped away from the lights of the main building the shape of the low garden walls and clipped hedges took on a grey and menacing appearance, becoming strange and other-worldly in the half-light.

As a result she didn’t notice the figure sitting on the steps that led from the upper lawn until the very last moment and she nearly kicked him in the back.

She recovered her balance without falling over him. ‘Jesus! You scared me.’

‘Sorry.’ The chicken thief stood up. He was too close for comfort. Especially in the dark, deserted garden. Katie took a step back.

He stepped away, too, as if aware of her discomfort, giving her more space. ‘I’m sorry I startled you.’

‘Why are you loitering out here?’ She didn’t mean to sound so abrupt, but it hadn’t been the best evening.

He held up an unlit cigarette. ‘I’m wrestling with my demon.’

‘Ah,’ Katie said. ‘I’ve heard it’s harder to give up nicotine than heroin. Or is it cocaine?’

He shrugged.

‘Why aren’t you in there?’ Katie gestured to the hotel. ‘The police want to speak to you.’

‘To everyone, surely. Not me specifically.’ He tilted his head back. ‘You look better. Are you feeling better?’

‘You did find the deceased,’ Katie said. ‘I think that makes you a key witness or something.’

‘You found him first.’

‘And I’ve spoken to them,’ Katie pointed out.

‘Good for you. Very public spirited.’

‘Seriously. A man is dead. You ought to—’

‘I prefer to keep a low profile.’

Katie’s mouth twisted. ‘I hardly think they’ll care about you crashing the wedding.’

‘You noticed that, huh?’ He pulled out a packet and stuck the unlit cigarette inside. ‘And I thought I was so stealthy.’

‘It wasn’t that obvious. I was watching you, though—’ Katie broke off. That was an embarrassing thing to say. He looked amused, which didn’t help.

‘That’s good to know.’

‘Because you seemed dodgy,’ Katie said. ‘Not for any other reason.’

He smirked. ‘I’m Max, by the way.’

‘Katie. So, big drama tonight.’ She indicated the looming building behind them.

‘Yep.’ Max sat down again, his elbows on his knees.

‘What were you doing in Mr Cole’s room?’

‘I was just passing, the door was open and I heard a noise.’

‘Did you know him? The one who—’

‘No.’ Max shook his head quickly.

He was lying. Katie felt sick. It was unlikely that he had anything to do with the poor guy having a heart attack, but still. He was a liar. And he crashed the wedding which made him a thief, too. She felt a crushing sensation of guilt. She ought to have told the police about him. Ought to go back inside and tell them right now. He’d just lie to them, of course. And he seemed to be awfully good at it.

Like it or not, he was her responsibility. She sat down on the step next to him, probably a little too close for comfort but she’d always found this particular trick easier if she was physically near to the person she was trying to read.

She took a deep breath, concentrating hard, and trying to ignore the fact that she was close enough to catch the scent coming from his skin. ‘Did you have something to do with his death?’

She watched him closely.

He frowned. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Just answer the question,’ Katie said. Her voice was calm.

‘No,’ Max said. He looked disgusted. ‘No, I didn’t have anything to do with his death.’

He was telling the truth. Thank God. It wasn’t his expression or the tone of his voice or the way his eyes met hers, it was something else. A certainty. Another of the Harper family intuitions but one that came in handy more often than most. ‘Sorry.’ She smiled, more at ease now. ‘I’m just a bit shaken up, I guess.’

‘Well, that’s understandable—’

‘It must have just happened when I found him. He’d called room service twenty minutes before. He was really cold, though.’ Which was odd. Maybe. How long did it take for a body to get cold? Katie swallowed, feeling suddenly sick again.

‘Oh, Christ. That can’t have been fun.’

‘Worse for him,’ Katie said.

‘No wonder you passed out. Are you sure you’re okay? You still look really pale.’

‘I’m always this colour,’ Katie said. She started to unwrap the cheesecake. Dessert would help. She needed some sugar to give herself the energy for the walk home. ‘So, how’d you know the guy, Mr Cole. Were you two close?’

‘I told you. I don’t — I didn’t — know him.’

Katie raised an eyebrow. ‘If you keep lying to me I won’t give you any cheesecake.’

‘What makes you think I’m lying?’

‘I know when people are telling the truth.’ She smiled. ‘It’s a gift.’

Max tilted his head back and regarded her for a moment. Then he said, ‘Remind me never to play poker with you.’

‘So?’ Katie used her fingers to break off a piece of cheesecake; it was messy. Messy and delicious. She closed her eyes to enjoy the creamy perfection and opened them to see Max looking at her with an odd expression. ‘What?’

Max shook his head slightly, then said, ‘He owed me money.’

‘A lot?’

‘Fair bit.’ Max reached for the plate.

Katie moved it away. ‘Why did he owe you money?’

‘Do you play poker, as a matter of interest?’

‘No,’ Katie said. The sugar was helping, making her feel less weak and fuzzy. ‘I used to play gin rummy with my dad all the time. I like whist but you need more than two and mum wasn’t a card player.’

Max snagged the plate while Katie was talking and dug in.

‘You know I’m not staying here, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Well, I’m just kind of passing through. When I’m moving around I incur expenses. Petrol. Accommodation.’

‘Food, when you’re not crashing weddings, presumably.’ Katie paused. ‘Don’t you get found out all the time?’

‘Not really. I prefer corporate events, but big weddings are pretty easy. No one ever knows everyone at those things. If someone chats, you make sure to ask them first whether they know the bride or the groom and then you say the opposite. As long as you avoid the happy couple, you’re golden.’

Katie shook her head. ‘All for a free lunch?’

‘I usually play poker in casinos or backroom games, but sometimes they’re hard to come by, so I check out places like this that hold functions, turn up and make friends and play a few games of cards. For money.’

‘You conned him?’

‘No. Not really.’ Max stared at the cheesecake. ‘Maybe a little. Light hustling, perhaps.’

‘And he croaked before you could collect your ill-gotten gains. Sucks to be you.’ Katie stood up. ‘Are you staying in town?’

‘Uh-huh. At the delightful Cosy Inn.’ He re-wrapped the cling film over the remaining cheesecake and got to his feet. ‘I’ll walk you home.’

Katie stifled the urge to laugh. ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’ She was Katie Harper. She was the latest in a long line of magical women. She was practically a witch, for goodness’ sake, the dark was not a problem.

‘Okay.’ Max shrugged. ‘You can walk me home.’

‘Nice try,’ Katie said, but, since they both had to walk down the driveway, there didn’t seem to be much point in resisting too much. She’d have to break into a ridiculous trot to get ahead of him and that wouldn’t be very dignified. Besides, the tall trees lining the driveway cut a lot of the moonlight and the driveway was incredibly dark. Katie didn’t want to admit it, but she felt a bit shaky after seeing Mr Cole. A distraction was kind of welcome.

‘So, you’re a con man. I don’t think I’ve met a real-life one of those before.’

‘That’s a bit harsh. I gamble a bit, sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.’

‘But you hustled Oliver Cole?’

‘You wouldn’t be up in arms if you’d met him. I know it’s not classy to speak ill of the dead, but the guy was a dick.’

‘You said you hardly knew him.’

Max looked sideways at her. ‘I’m a pretty good judge of character.’

The driveway curved down to the main road. Katie thought that she’d feel fine once she was out of the damn trees. The dark tunnel made her feel claustrophobic.

‘So,’ Max said after a moment. ‘What do you think happened? I heard someone say heart attack.’

The unwanted image of Mr Cole’s frozen face came back and Katie swallowed. He’d looked frightened. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. Nothing peaceful.

Katie blinked away the image and said, ‘So, why are you travelling around? Don’t people usually go around, like, Venice and Paris and stuff? Not Wiltshire.’

He laughed. ‘Not that kind of travelling. More of a road trip.’

They’d reached the end of the driveway and were on the steep hill into town. The lights of Pendleford shone in the dark like a constellation. The river was a velvet black ribbon. Soon they were on a street with lamps and Katie felt herself relax. ‘A road trip on your own. Don’t you have any friends?’

‘Plenty.’ Max gave her a twisted smile, but didn’t say anything else.

They’d reached the brightly lit streets of Pendleford. All was well and Katie felt silly for her moment of weakness. So, she’d seen a dead body and fainted. It was unsettling and more than a little embarrassing but no reason to go to pieces.

‘Well.’ Katie stuck out her hand. ‘It was nice to meet you.’

‘I’ll walk you home,’ Max said.

‘It’s not far,’ Katie said. ‘I’ll be fine. The Cosy Inn is down that way.’ She pointed in the opposite direction to her flat.

‘Are you sure? It doesn’t feel right to leave you on your own.’

‘Trust me, I’m perfectly safe in Pendleford.’ Everyone in town knew that she was Gwen Harper’s niece and half of them were terrified that she’d give them the evil eye. If she bumped into an idiot with a death wish or a clueless visitor, then she was covered with a home-made protection spell. Of course, she was bloody awful at spells, so she’d also armed herself with a practical option. Max was still hesitating, clearly torn over his misplaced ideas of chivalry. Katie pulled out her can of defence spray. ‘I have this. See?’

Max took a step back and put his hands in the air. ‘Is that legal? I thought—’

‘It’s not the good stuff,’ Katie said. It was sticky spray, which had made her American friend, Alison, laugh for ten minutes after she’d explained that it shot goo, rather than pepper spray, but it said ‘Mace’ on the side in big letters. Plus UV-coloured goo had to be better than nothing. Especially if you aimed for the eyes.

Max looked into the spray nozzle and took another step back. ‘I’m not going to win the “trustworthy” argument, am I?’

‘Not tonight,’ Katie said. She stuck out her hand again and he shook it. Katie tried not to notice how nice his hand was. Long fingers, knotty knuckles and the perfect size. It dwarfed her hand without seeming like a gorilla’s paw. ‘Nice to meet you, Max. Have a nice life.’

He tilted his head back, appraising her. ‘You’re kind of cold, you know that?’

The warm feelings she had been beginning to entertain fled. Why were the good-looking ones always such wankers? Katie sighed. ‘Why do men think women are being cold if they don’t fall at their feet?’

‘Okay, okay.’ Max turned away. ‘I’m going.’

Katie watched him walk down the street. She told herself that she was making sure he was walking away, not going to follow her, but there was a part of her that just wanted to look at him one last time.

Inside her flat, Katie kicked off her shoes and stripped off her tights with relief. She’d been planning to get into the shower, but the headache was pulsing behind her eyes now. She took a couple of paracetamol and stumbled to the bedroom. When she lay down, the room seemed to be spinning, which reminded her uncomfortably of the one and only time she’d got drunk. It wasn’t a good memory, but at least it pushed away the events of the evening. Katie closed her eyes and felt the adrenaline still running through her body, making her limbs tingle and her mind jump from one image to another. It was going to be a long night.