She approached the window cautiously, peering at the sill. There were still flecks of soil floating in the water, but the maggots had disappeared. With a sigh of relief she mopped up the water and wedged a clean drying-up cloth into the angle between the sill and the window frame to catch the melted sleet as it seeped through, then she turned to the stove. There were only three logs left in the box. She opened the door and wedged one of them into the stove, and opening the dampers roared it up a little, then she plumped up the cushions on the sofa. Behind her Alison had shuffled as far as the doorway. She was peering into the room.
‘Has she gone?’ she said.
‘Who?’ Kate swung round.
‘ -’ Alison’s deep breath was cut off short and her shoulders slumped. ‘I don’t know. There was someone here… or was she on the beach…?’
Kate walked over to her and put her arm round her shoulders. ‘There’s no one here, Allie,’ she said softly. ‘And there’s nothing to be afraid of. You got very cold on the beach and I think you’ve had a touch of hypothermia. That sometimes makes people imagine things. Come and sit down and put your feet up then have a drink. You’ll feel better soon, I promise.’ She would not look at the corner where she had seen the figure of the woman. That, too, was imagination. ‘I’ll tell you what, why don’t we have some music.’ She went to her pile of cassettes and shuffled through them with a small half-smile at the thought of what Alison was going to think of Vaughan Williams or Sibelius or Bach when her tastes were so demonstrably different. Her hand hovered over the tapes. Faure’s Requiem. How had that got there? It was Jon’s. She stared at it for a moment, then she opened its box and took it out. Was it some atavistic need for prayer that made her choose it? Whatever it was it would do no harm. As she slotted it into the cassette player her eye was caught by the pile of typescript on her desk. She shrugged. Now was not the time to worry about work. Perhaps if Alison fell asleep she would be able to do some writing. It was obvious at the moment that the girl could not walk anywhere, so there was nothing she could do but keep her warm and wait. But later, when Alison was better, should they try and walk back to the farmhouse, or should they wait for Roger and Diana to miss the girl and come looking for her? She felt so alone without a telephone; so thrown back on her own resources.
As the ethereal strains of the
The tentative knock on the front door was almost lost in the strains of music but at the sound of it a shot of adrenalin propelled Kate out of her chair in a panic, every nerve stretched. She looked at Alison, but the girl didn’t seem to have heard it.
Patrick stood on the doorstep, a yellow cycling mac over his thick jacket, his hair plastered to his head, his cheeks pink with the effort of bicycling down the wet muddy track.
‘Hi. Mum wondered if Allie was here. Your phone’s out of order, did you know?’
‘Yes, I did and yes, she is.’ Kate pulled him into the hall and closed the door. ‘Thank God you’ve come!’ She glanced over her shoulder into the living room. Alison still appeared to have heard nothing. Her eyes were closed and her face had relaxed into sleep. ‘Come into the kitchen where we can talk.’ Kate led the way and closed the door silently behind them. To her shame she found that her hands were still shaking. ‘Listen, something very odd has been happening. I found Alison out in the dunes, kneeling in the excavation in some sort of trance. You’ve got to fetch your parents and the Land Rover to take her home. She’s OK, more or less, but she’s not well enough to walk. I think she ought to see a doctor.’
‘Oh hell.’ Patrick’s thin face was a picture of worry. ‘The reason I came on the bike was because Greg’s taken the Land Rover. No one knows where he’s gone. The Volvo won’t make it through the woods. It’s a quagmire. And there’s been a severe weather warning on the radio. It’s going to snow hard.’
‘Damn!’ Kate gnawed at her thumbnail.
‘What’s wrong with Allie? What was she doing out at the dig in this weather?’ Patrick asked thoughtfully.
‘I don’t know. She had no spades with her or anything. She seemed to be in a state of shock.’ Kate eyed him. She had barely spoken to this intense young man before, but what she had seen she liked. He appeared to be steadier and calmer than either his brother or his sister – far more like his father in fact. ‘Something happened to her out there, Patrick. I don’t know what it was, but it scared the hell out of her. She’s still frightened. And so am I.’ She hadn’t meant to add that last bit.
Patrick was eyeing her warily. ‘She started something when she messed about with that grave, didn’t she?’ he said. His voice was pleasant, light, calm. ‘She’s stirred something up.’
Kate swallowed. ‘I suppose it’s possible,’ she said cautiously.
‘Do you think it’s Marcus’s grave?’
Kate shook her head. ‘I don’t see how it can be. They found his grave near Colchester somewhere.’ She hesitated. ‘I think it’s a woman’s grave.’
‘I see.’ He frowned. He seemed unsurprised. He didn’t ask her how she knew. He was more concerned with turning over this new set of possibilities in his mind. ‘You mean the ghost is not a joke. A woman really does haunt this cottage. Do you think Allie saw her?’
Kate nodded. ‘Her name is Claudia.’
Patrick’s eyebrows shot up. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Allie was muttering about her. She doesn’t remember now, but she said the name several times.’
‘Wow.’ Patrick looked awestruck. ‘Oh, Jeez. I wish Mum and Dad were here.’ He glanced up and swatted exasperatedly in the air as a bluebottle divebombed the light near him. Kate stared at it. Something cold had lodged in the pit of her stomach. Where were they coming from, the bluebottles – and the maggots?
As if reading her thoughts Patrick grinned. ‘You often get them in old houses in the winter,’ he said comfortably. ‘They hibernate or something. There are probably dead mice under the floorboards. You’ve heated the place up a lot so they’ve woken up.’
He was right of course. Kate shuddered. Had she really begun to wonder, deep down in the innermost part of herself, if the maggots and the soil and the flies had somehow come out of the grave? She gave a feeble grin. ‘I was beginning to think the worst.’
‘Have you really seen her? Claudia?’ Patrick’s eyes were like his brother’s. They were deep grey-green, all- seeing, but unlike Greg’s they were sleepy, gentle. Misleading. She could feel them boring into her soul.
‘Yes, I’ve seen her.’
Once again he seemed to accept her answer without surprise. There was no mockery or disbelief in his voice when he asked his next question:
‘Do you think she smashed up the house?’ He held her gaze.
She shrugged. ‘I’ve never really thought about the idea of whether or not I believe in ghosts, before. They seemed a nice idea – at a safe distance.’
‘Scientifically, the idea is untenable, of course.’
She smiled. ‘Is it? I wonder.’
‘Psychokinetic energy is something that is measurable, I believe, and has been shown to be capable of hurling things about a bit. That is what poltergeists are. They are often connected with the presence of a teenager. All our frustrated angst.’ He smiled and Kate found herself thinking with a certain wry amusement how very much more mature this intense boy was than his elder brother.
‘Allie is a bit of a prat,’ he went on, ‘but she’s a nice kid. There’s nothing malicious about her. She wouldn’t do this on purpose.’ He was speaking from the safe platform of two years’ superiority. He glanced up as an unusually strong gust of wind hurled a shower of hail against the window and he shuddered. ‘Can I see the room where it happened before I go?’
‘Help yourself. On the left at the top of the stairs.’ She stayed in the kitchen as he ran up, listening to the sound of his feet overhead. A couple of minutes later he came down again. ‘It’s all tidy.’
‘She got what she wanted.’
‘Allie?’
‘No. Not Allie.’
His eyes widened. ‘I didn’t realise that something was missing? I thought Mum said they hadn’t taken anything.’
‘They – she – took the silver torc which I found in the grave.’
