The Secret of Crickley Hall

'Who are they?'

'You know—the children.'

He studied her bowed head for a moment.

'Why can't I see them?' he asked.

She became even more impatient with him. ''Cos you can't, Daddy. I told you, they've gone away.'

'But why didn't I see them before they went, you know, when I came into the room?'

'I 'unno.'

Bart Simpson was becoming a regular pain. 'Tell me properly, Squirt. Why didn't I see the kids?'

''Cos they're a secret,' she answered, finally looking up at him.

'I think I saw the lights, those little floating lights. But they went away as soon as I came in. Is that what you mean, are the lights the children?'

'Children are jus' children, Daddy,' she explained as if he were the child and she the adult.

'Uh, do you see them a lot? The children, I mean.'

She shook her head.

'What d'you do when they come?'

'We play.'

He rose to his feet, knowing he was not going to get any more from her. What is it about this goddamn place? he asked himself. 'Okay, Sparky—' he began to say, but whirled towards the door when a great banging started up outside on the landing.

Cally stared after him in alarm as he rushed through the doorway.

28: CAM

'My son Cameron disappeared a year ago,' Eve began to tell Lili Peel. 'Almost a year ago'—she corrected herself. 'I'd taken Cam, as we always called him, and his sister, Cally—she was four years old then, a year younger than my son—I'd taken them to a local park. Our home is in London, but we're here in Devon while my husband conducts some business with a Devon-based company.' She didn't feel details were necessary at this stage, but the psychic asked a question.

'Where are you living while you're here?'

Eve dabbed at her eyes, the tears all but dried out now, while the misery lingered as always; there was no relief in tears for her.

'Near Hollow Bay. Do you know it?'

'I've visited once or twice.' Lili Peel didn't add that she had never liked the place, even though the harbour village was pretty enough. It was the atmosphere she didn't care for, the unsettling gloom that somehow shadowed the place. She supposed that, as a sensitive, she picked up vibes more easily than other 'normal' people. 'Two years ago I left my card in the shop there.'

'Yes. Of course you know Hollow Bay.' Eve crumpled the handkerchief into a ball in her fist. 'You have no Devon accent, though. You're not from the county.'

'No, I come from Surrey. I moved here seven years ago.' She'd answered curtly as if reluctant to talk about herself.

Lili Peel must have come to Devon in her early twenties—she could be no more than twenty-eight, twenty- nine.

'Have you always had the gift?' Eve nevertheless enquired.

'If you can call it that,' the psychic replied. 'I realized I was different, that I seemed to know things I shouldn't, from the age of seven. If my parents ever mislaid something—anything from a sewing needle to the car keys—I always knew where it was.' She said no more, expecting Eve to continue.

Eve gathered herself, resolving to tell the story of her missing son without too much emotion. It wouldn't be easy, not even after all this time.

'Cally was asleep in her buggy, while I watched Cam from a bench close to the park's play area. He was on the swings, then at the climbing frame—he seemed to be all over the place at once. I kept my eyes on him all the time and it was only later when he wanted to play in the sandpit that I relaxed. Although the weather was cold and the sand was damp, Cam insisted on playing in there, so I let him. I thought at least he could come to no harm; there wasn't any way he could injure himself. And so, yes, I relaxed for a few moments.'

It was painful for Eve to relive that horrendous day, but she managed to maintain control. Months and months of guilt and sorrow had worn her down; going over and over that crisply cold day in October time and time again in her mind until she was exhausted with it, tortured by it. Perhaps it was emotional fatigue that stemmed her tears now.

'I was a freelance writer for fashion magazines back then,' she went on, even now hating herself for having such a time-consuming and wearing job, on a freelance basis or not. 'I'd worked 'til three in the morning to meet a copy date, and I was very tired. I'd promised Cam and Cally—we have another daughter, Loren, who's now twelve years old—I'd promised I'd take them to the park the previous day if they left me alone long enough to write my piece.' She smiled wanly. 'As it was, I never really got into the article during the day—too many phone calls, too many other things going on—which is why I ended up working late into the night and the following morning.'

She paused and Lili Peel at least nodded sympathetically.

'I fell asleep on the park bench. I don't know how long for—it felt like seconds, but it must have been minutes, several minutes. There were lots of other children with their mothers in the play area, so I thought he'd be all right. Even so, I didn't deliberately go to sleep; it just happened, sleep just overcame me.'

Eve cast her eyes downwards, away from the psychic's stare.

'When I woke up, Cam was gone. Cally was wide awake and howling to be let out of her buggy so she could play too. It must have been her crying that roused me. I looked towards the sandpit—it was only a few yards away—and Cam wasn't there any more. I looked everywhere in the play area and rushed up to other mothers and older children to ask them if they'd seen Cam anywhere. I asked them if they'd seen anyone take my son away. I was frantic, close to hysteria, and some of the mothers were kind enough to help me look further afield. We split up, each of us going in different directions into the main park, searching, asking people if they'd seen a blond-haired little boy wandering on his own or being led away by some person, man or woman.'

Eve's upper body sagged in the chair as she experienced—yet again—the nightmare.

'But it was hopeless. Cam had vanished. I rang the police on my mobile and they sent a WPC over; together, Cally very quiet in her buggy as if she sensed something was terribly wrong, we covered every inch of the park. The policewoman did her best to calm me down while we looked, but by then I was completely strung out. Because it was October, dusk came quickly, and by then there was a whole team of policemen and women searching for Cam in the park and the area around it. They even drove me back to my own home and scoured it from top to bottom. My son went on the missing persons' list right away, and I believe the police did their best to find him, but we never saw our little boy again.'

Lili Peel's voice had softened only slightly. 'Did you—did the police—suspect he'd been snatched?'

'Eventually a kidnapping was my only hope. And although we never received a ransom note or call—not that we're wealthy anyway—and known paedophiles in the neighbourhood were questioned, the police never found Cam, nor any trace of him—a piece of clothing, a lost shoe. Nothing.'

The psychic's next question was put awkwardly. 'Mrs Caleigh—Eve, are you asking me to contact your dead son for you?'

Eve sat rigid in the chair. 'No,' she almost shouted. Then, softer: 'No, Cam isn't dead, don't you see? That's why I don't care if you're not a clairvoyant or spiritualist, a medium, whatever they call themselves. I'm certain my son is alive and that's why I'm asking you to use your psychic ability to reach him.'

'Eve… Eve, why do you think Cam is still alive after all this time? It's a hard thing for me to say, but you have no evidence that he's alive. How can you be so sure?'

'Because I would know if he were dead, I would feel he wasn't here any more. A mother just knows these things. Call it intuition, or—or telepathy, but I truly sense Cameron is still here, still alive.'

She stumbled over her words as she tried to explain, tried to convince this person