Hiding From the Light

After the visit Mark had slept uneasily and woken early. The second night he had been shocked awake by the sound of someone screaming. Splashing his face in cold water he had stood for several minutes in the bathroom of the bed and breakfast, staring into the mirror before he had tiptoed back to his bedroom. The sound had been part of his dream, he knew that. And yet, somehow it had come from outside him. He climbed back into bed and sat there, with the table light on, huddled beneath the bedcovers fighting sleep. When at last he had dozed off he dreamed he was running down a dark road and there were people chasing him. He could hear them shouting, baying like hounds and growing closer all the time. He was still running, out of breath and drenched in sweat, when his alarm clock woke him.

Mark glanced up at the others from the clipboard. ‘I’m going to want the interviews in different settings. Perhaps some outside by the river, or some of the other places associated with Hopkins. Unless the ghosts appear there’s basically not much to see here. An empty shop. An empty upstairs. But I’d like to get some shots of that staircase if we can light it properly. I’ve got three interviews set up for this afternoon, Joe. Barker first. I’m easy where he goes, wherever he feels most comfortable, then we can fit the others round him.’

‘You don’t think he’ll back out at the last moment?’ Colin hefted the camera up onto the counter.

‘He seemed quite keen.’ Mark flipped over the page and made a quick pencil note on his schedule. ‘I had a moment of inspiration and told him programmes like this lead to dozens of people trying to buy a property after it’s appeared on TV.’

‘Not necessarily after a programme like this one!’ Colin commented dryly.

‘No, well you never know!’ Mark glanced at his watch. ‘Let’s go up and see where it would be best to put him.’

He led the way up the creaking staircase. At the top he stopped, looking into the large upper room. He frowned. Something in there had changed from when he had been in there earlier.

‘Problem?’ Colin was immediately behind him, Joe and Alice at the rear.

‘No.’ Mark walked into the room. The last person up here had been Emma. She had seen something. Felt the atmosphere. He stared round thoughtfully. ‘Feel anything?’

‘Apart from cold?’ The others had trooped in behind him. Colin shivered.

‘Cold is a start. This is August.’

Colin strode over to the window and glanced down into the street. The window sill was level with his knees and he had to stoop to see out of it. ‘We expected bad vibes. What would a haunted house be without them?’ Hunkering down he reached for the window latch and pushed the small casement open. ‘The room just needs a bit of fresh air. This place has horrendous rising damp and probably dry rot and death-watch beetle and every other scourge that old buildings are heir to. Any of that would be enough to put off a buyer, you know.’ He stood up and faced the others. ‘Mark?’

Mark was staring at the brick wall. ‘I saw something move. There. In front of the wall.’ His face had gone white.

They all followed the pointing finger and looked hard at the bricks. The temperature in the room had plummeted. For a moment they stood in total silence, no one daring to move. The traffic noise from the High Street had ceased and the quiet was unnaturally claustrophobic.

‘Can’t see anything. Shall I go down for the camera?’ Colin said quietly. He glanced at Alice. She was gazing at the wall with a slight frown on her face. If she was scared she was hiding it well.

‘No.’ Mark stepped over beside him. ‘No, it’s gone, whatever it was.’

Outside a car hooted.

‘Probably a spider,’ Joe put in firmly. He rearranged his lanky frame, folding his arms nonchalantly.

‘Probably.’ Turning, Mark stared out of the window, taking a deep breath of the air flooding into the room. A strong smell of traffic fumes rose from the street below, where cars paused to pass each other in the narrow thoroughfare. Suddenly the room felt marginally warmer.

The interview took only twenty minutes from beginning to end. They could tell it was going to be a disaster from the moment Stan Barker walked into the shop.

‘I’m not going upstairs.’ He stood, uncomfortable in his best suit, just inside the door.

Colin eyed the florid face, the too-tight collar, the jazzy tie, and glanced at Mark with a raised eyebrow.

Mark gave a barely perceptible shrug. ‘Perhaps you could stand there, at the bottom of the stairs? I just want to ask you a few questions then we’re going to do some shots of the shop itself.’

As interviewer-cum-presenter he was going to remain out of shot. If necessary he could get Colin to insert one or two angles of himself later. They always took a few interviewer shots in case.

‘So, Mr Barker, how long have your family owned number one Church Street?’

Colin, with the camera, had positioned himself beside him; Joe had pinned a mike to Stan’s tie. Stan had the look of a man facing a firing squad.

‘My grandfather bought it just after the war.’ He hesitated. ‘The old house was split into two and turned into shops about the turn of the century, I reckon. The lad as owned this half never come back. His wife wanted shot of the place so it was going for a good price.’

‘And what kind of a shop was it then?’

Mark’s question seemed to floor him. He hesitated, then he shrugged. ‘Butcher. He was a butcher, my granda.’

They were going to have to extricate every word. It was like drawing teeth.

‘And what happened next?’

‘He weren’t well, so he suggested my dad took it over. Well, he didn’t want to be a butcher so he said no. They got a man in to manage it. Old Fred Arrow. He only lasted a year.’

Silence. Stan’s eyes were riveted to the microphone baffle on top of the camcorder.

‘And what happened then?’ Mark prompted quietly. Colin moved smoothly to one side, stepping over the trailing cable, changing the angle.

‘He said he weren’t going to stay another day in the place. Hated it, he did. Said it were haunted. He said he saw Dave Pegram – that’s the lad as was killed in the war – standing on the stairs …’ He broke off and the look he shot over his own shoulder was one of pure terror. Colin smiled. Yes!

‘Well, he went and so did the next chap and then another butcher opened up down the street and Da thought he’d pack it in. So he tried to sell the place. No one was interested. Not as a butcher’s. Then a woman came along in about 1950. She wanted to run it as a bakery. Fancy cakes and things she sold. She lasted a year – maybe a bit longer, but then she saw Dave as well –’

‘When you say she saw Dave,’ Mark interrupted smoothly, ‘would she have recognised him?’

‘No.’ Stan shook his head vigorously. ‘She weren’t local. She’d never met him.’

‘But she described him?’

Stan shrugged. ‘On the stairs, she said. And upstairs. She had a flat up there, above the shop. There were three rooms in them days and then there’s an attic, too. She said he used to walk up and down all night. She’d lie there listening and she could hear him pacing up and down. You might well shiver, young lady!’ He addressed Alice suddenly who, dressed in jeans and a skimpy T-shirt had hugged herself with a shudder as she stood nearby with Mark’s clipboard clasped importantly to her chest. The goose-pimples on her arms were clearly visible.

Mark sighed. It didn’t matter. They could cut that bit.

‘I take it she checked there was no one there?’

‘She wouldn’t go up there. She left. Halfway through the lease, she upped and left. After that there was a whole load of different people. Dress shop. Hardware. Another baker. Bikes. A little tea shop once. None of them stayed.’

‘And I understand you asked for the shop to be exorcised?’

Stan looked uncomfortable. ‘Stupid business. But nobody would take it on after my Da died, so I got the old rector up here. We reckoned if Dave had never had a proper burial wherever he died, poor bastard, perhaps a few prayers and that would sort him out.’

‘And did it?’

The camera moved closer, focusing on Stan’s face.

He shook his head. ‘No. It wasn’t Dave, was it. We’d said the prayers for the wrong bloke. His son turned up in the town one day to see where ’is dad had lived. Turned out he hadn’t died at all – or not till years later! He’d gone to Canada with someone else’s missus!’

A snort of laughter from Alice broke the tension abruptly. Joe and Colin both glared at her. Mark continued soberly: ‘So, what happened after that?’

‘Well, we thought maybe the prayers would work anyway, but the noises got worse.’ Stan looked down suddenly as though afraid to stare any longer into the camera lens. ‘Much worse.’

Mark found his mouth had gone dry. The question he was about to ask died on his lips. There was a long silence. Colin glanced at him with a frown. He stopped filming. ‘That’s great. Do you want any more, Mark?’

Mark fished in his pocket for a handkerchief and mopped his face with it. ‘Yeah. I do. We need to come up to the present. Why you’re trying to sell it again now.’

Stan shrugged. He shifted uncomfortably as Joe moved in to adjust the microphone clip and Colin started filming again. ‘There’s always noises. People walking up and down.’

‘And at what point,’ Mark took a deep breath, ‘did you decide that the house was haunted by Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General?’

Stan stared round wildly. For a moment Mark thought he wasn’t going to answer, but he turned back to the camera and speaking fast and confidentially he started on an explanation which sounded, Mark thought suddenly, just a bit too rehearsed.

‘Him – the Witchfinder – he’s been seen in all sorts of places in the town. And they’ve seen him up at Hopping Bridge and at the Thorn at Mistley. That’s named after him, you know. The Hopping Bridge. So, why not here, too? The worst place is in the Indian across the road. Used to be the Guildhall or some such, that little place where they tried them. The witches. Well, I thought to myself, supposing it’s him here. And it was.’ He stopped almost triumphantly.

‘How do you know it was him?’ Mark glanced down at Joe, who had resumed his position slightly behind him, on one knee, second microphone in hand. Joe raised an eyebrow.

‘’Coz I do. I seen ’im.’

Mark wasn’t sure whether the shifty look in the man’s eyes was because he was lying or because he was afraid to admit the sighting.

‘Can you describe him for us?’

‘Tall. Wearing large boots. A pointy sort of hat. And a goatee beard. Everyone as sees ’im says he’s got a goatee beard.’

‘And he was here in this house?’

‘On the stairs. Right behind where I’m standing.’

He turned and they all followed his gaze to the point where the uneven oak risers disappeared around the corner. As Colin focused in carefully and panned the camera across the breadth of the stairs, Alice gave a small whimper.

Mark persevered. ‘And was there a historical connection between Matthew Hopkins and this building?’

‘He walked the witches here.’ Stan folded his arms defiantly. ‘Up and down. All night. Didn’t let them sleep. In the end they was so muddled they didn’t know what they was saying. He’d get a confession out of them, then they’d be packed off to the dungeons in Colchester Castle.’

‘What a bastard!’ Alice’s voice was shrill.

‘Cut!’ Mark brought his hand down sharply in a chopping motion. ‘Alice, one more interruption and you’re going home!’

Joe turned to his daughter with a frown. ‘Get a grip, Alice. You knew what this job was. Groovy, I believe you said!’

Alice shuffled across to the counter. She was scowling. ‘Sorry.’

Mark looked back at Stan. ‘So, having decided the building was haunted by Cromwell’s witchfinder, you decided to cut your losses and sell it. But no one wants to buy, is that right?’

Stan nodded gloomily. ‘Trouble is, the place is falling down. It needs all sorts of repairs. The roof leaks.’ He shrugged. ‘I can’t afford to keep it on. Don’t want it. No way. And I need the money. I thought people would like a haunted house. Someone told me there was a market for such like. But, no one has gone for it yet.’

Joe glanced at Mark and winked. So, they had finally got there. The old bugger was making it up. He thought he’d get a better price for the shop if it had a famous ghost. Mark hid his irritation. This wouldn’t do a lot for the credibility of the programme.

‘Thanks, Stan. I think that’s all we need for now.’

‘Right.’ Stan moved away from the stairs with alacrity. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then. Just you remember I want you out of here by tomorrow. There’s a new tenant moving in Monday.’

‘Stan!’ Mark called suddenly as the old man moved towards the door. ‘What about the other part of the house. The shop next door. Isn’t that haunted, too?’

Stan shrugged. ‘Never heard that it was. They only walked the witches here, see.’ He jerked his thumb towards the stairs. ‘Never took them to the nicer side of the house. That’s where the family lived. Couldn’t hear them scream from that side of the house!’

There was a long silence after he had gone.

Colin eased the heavy camera off his shoulder and put it down with a groan as Alice closed the door behind their interviewee and stood watching him walk out of sight.

‘Christ, only one more day! I thought we’d got a week at least,’ Mark complained as Joe began to coil up his cables. ‘He told me it’s going to be an end-of-line discount shop, this and that, probably most of it fallen off the backs of lorries – just till Christmas. You’d think they could give us a bit longer.’

‘We can do it.’ Colin retrieved the clipboard from Alice. ‘If we spend the whole day at it tomorrow – and there’s always tonight, of course.’ He grinned at her. ‘After all, ghosts appear at night, don’t they?’ He sighed. ‘I was more worried about his remarks about ghosts being a selling point. What do you think? Have we wasted the whole afternoon? If he’s made all this up, the programme has gone. Damn! If he hadn’t said that!’

‘We’ll cut that bit,’ Joe said. He was lighting up a cigarette.

Mark shook his head slowly. ‘We’d still know he’d said it.’

‘I think he’s telling the truth.’ Alice hauled herself up onto the counter and sat, swinging her legs. ‘That last bit was awful – how they couldn’t hear them scream in the other half of the house.’

Mark shrugged. He was inclined to agree with Alice. ‘The trouble is, he’s after a quick sale. But perhaps it’s backfired on him a bit. People like ghosts, but not these particular ghosts. Not to live with. I’m afraid the shop’s history, if it’s true, will put purchasers off. Still,’ he paused and gave a wry grin, ‘I suppose when one thinks about it, for our purposes, it could add credibility to the film.’ He walked across to Alice. ‘Let’s see the interview list. We’ve got two more today. Out and about. I wonder if we should reschedule them and concentrate on this place for now. There’s a couple more tomorrow. That’s fine. We can do atmosphere here. Then we want corroboration and a few shots of Colchester Castle and its dungeons – you checked for permissions for that, Alice? Good. Then that should about do it. Nice piece. OK, folks. Let’s get some film in, of the attic and the first floor. The shadows are moving round a bit now. It’ll look a bit more spooky. That’s what Emma called it. Spooky. And that was unprompted.’ He smiled at the recollection. ‘Then we can get some street shots. OK?’

As they busied themselves collecting camera, lights and clipboard a shadow appeared on the staircase by the newel post in the corner where the dusty oak steps disappeared out of sight. Alice glanced round sharply. But it had gone almost as soon as it had appeared.

None of them noticed the sound of footsteps on the dirty boards upstairs.

9

Out at sea the wind had dropped. The waves rose and fell in an uneasy swell, lapping around the Gunfleet Sands. On the shore a man walking his dog in the last of the light along the beach at Frinton stopped and stared at the North Sea. Where, minutes before, he had seen the distant horizon wreathed in a rack of stormy cloud and the waves breaking over the shallows, suddenly he could see nothing. He frowned uneasily. The sky was changing colour as he watched. It was turning a thick dirty yellow. The air was becoming colder and suddenly he could smell deep ocean currents and salt, the smell of northern seas, the smell of the ice floes. The man’s dog noticed. It had abandoned its excited sniffing of the weed and shells on the sand and was standing beside him, staring out as he was. It lifted a front paw, pointing, its ears cocked, then glanced up at him, seeking reassurance. The man shrugged his shoulders uneasily. ‘Time to go home, boy,’ he said quietly. The dog needed no second telling. With an unhappy yelp it turned tail and headed towards the low cliffs and the greensward above. Within minutes the mist had reached the edge of the beach. The cold clammy air lapped at the man’s heels. In it he could hear echoes of different places, different times. The distant call of a horn, the shouts of angry men. He turned for a second, terrified; he had imagined it, of course. The smell of the haar, and the swiftness of its arrival, had unnerved him.

Just for an instant he wondered if he could see the curved cruel beak of a boat surging in on the tide. But no, there was nothing there.

As he turned away to follow his dog up the cliff he shivered with fear. The evil was in the mist.

Behind him it swept in along the coast and around into the estuary heading up river towards Mistley and Manningtree. Within minutes the whole peninsula was shrouded in cold, clammy fog.

10

Saturday night

‘You have done what?’

Piers stared at Emma with disconcerting intensity.

‘I’ve made an offer. The cottage in Mistley.’ She had arrived back home just before ten to find him sitting alone in the roof garden listening to the soft strains of a string quartet, a glass of white wine on the wrought-iron table near him. The cats were asleep on the sofa swing. The hot night was velvet up here, not black, no London night was black. It was bitter, dark orange, scented with traffic fumes and chargrilling from dozens of terraces and rooftops and flowers from the park and the squares and a thousand small expensive gardens. A breath of cold wind trailed past them and was gone, leaving them staring at one another in silence.

Piers sat down and reached for his glass. ‘Forgive me, Emma, but I thought I heard you say you had bought a cottage. I must be going mad.’

‘You did hear me, Piers.’ Her confidence was evaporating fast. She sat down beside him and kicked off her sandals. Her ankle was still slightly swollen. ‘You will love it, I promise. I had to make the decision. There was someone else after it.’ She rubbed her face with her hands, exhausted after the long drive. ‘Can I have some wine?’

‘We’d both better have some wine.’ Piers’s voice was tight with anger. ‘Then perhaps you can explain.’

But how could she explain? The certainty. The fear of losing it. The knot of panic-stricken, illogical and desperate emotions which were tearing her apart made no sense to her, either.

‘You are out of your mind!’ was his terse comment when she had at last finished her rambling account of the day.

‘Probably.’ She stared after him as he went to lean on the parapet. ‘I had to do it, Piers. Don’t go on asking me why. I don’t understand myself. I know it doesn’t make sense. I know I’m mad. It’s just –’ She paused. ‘I knew the house. It was as though I knew every inch inside and out.’

‘And you decide to buy every house you’ve ever visited?’

‘No, of course not!’

‘Then why this one?’

Emma shook her head ‘Because it was home. It was as though I had been there before. Not just in my childhood. I only ever saw the outside then, from the road. I knew every tree, Piers. Every beam in the walls. I can’t explain it.’ She was trying not to cry. Leaning back in the chair, she stared up at the sky. The silence lengthened.

‘I’m going to bed, Em.’

She hadn’t realised that Piers had moved away from the wall. He was standing in front of her, looking down at her face. His own was deep in shadow, hiding his anger. ‘Where would you get the money from, Em? Have you thought about that?’

‘The money is not the problem, Piers. I have my father’s trust fund and I will use my own investments. I can afford it. I’m not asking you to contribute.’

‘I’m glad to hear it!’ He took a deep breath. Several seconds of silence stretched out between them. ‘Don’t forget that your ma and Dan are coming to lunch tomorrow. Perhaps they can talk some sense into that silly little head, eh?’ He stooped and kissed her hair. ‘See you in the morning.’

She didn’t move. Blinking back tears, she stared up at the sky again. For all the affectionate words she had heard the steely undertone. There would be no compromise over this one. Why had she ever hoped there would?

Sniffing miserably, she staggered to her feet and reached for the wine bottle. The wooden boarding under her bare feet was still warm. She could smell the luminous white flowers of the jasmine growing in the tub near the French doors. A dark shape flitted out of the shadows near her and she heard a loud purr. One of the cats had woken up. Bending, she picked him up and lifted him up onto her shoulder. Her eyes had filled with tears again. Wine glass in hand, she climbed into the swing seat and lay back. In seconds Max was joined on her knees by his sister, Min, cuddled up into the crook of Emma’s arm. In ten minutes, Emma was asleep.

As she began to dream first one cat, then the other, slid out of her arms and fled through the scented shadows, in through the French doors and out of sight.

If the old lady’s hiding place were discovered, she would die. There would be no escape. She pushed herself further back against the old brick wall and held her breath, aware of her heartbeat thundering in her ears.

‘We know you’re there, Liza.’ The voices were closer now. Women’s voices. Soft. Insinuating. ‘Come out and talk to us. You know it is what you have to do. It is the will of Christ.’

She put her hands over her ears and pressed hard, fighting to escape their words. If she didn’t make a sound. If she stopped breathing. If her heart ceased its infernal din, she would be safe. They would never find her here. Never.

‘Liza!’ They were closer now. At the gate. ‘Liza, why make it harder for yourself? Surrender to us, make your confession before Almighty God. He will be merciful. Come, Liza. We know you’re here!’ The voices were growing louder, echoing in her head, coming from every side now.

Liza!

Liza!

Liza!

Almighty God will be merciful, Liza …

All you have to do is repent Liza …

She could feel the sweat, ice cold between her shoulder blades and under her breasts. Her stiff, swollen hands were clenched into tight, white-knuckled balls, her nails cutting deep into her palms.

Come out, Liza!

They were laughing.

Pray, Liza …

It’s your turn, Liza …

With a start Emma sat up, feeling the perspiration cold on her body. She was shaking with fear. It took several seconds before she realised she was still outside on the roof terrace. She staggered to her feet and went to lean on the parapet, staring down towards the patch of darkness which was the garden square, trying to steady herself, aware of the noise of her heartbeat thundering in her ears. It was only a nightmare, for God’s sake, sparked off by her row with Piers. Stupid bad dream!