The Secret of Crickley Hall

you or any other member of your family in the house, you know, something spooky, something for our readers. The public likes a good ghost story now and again.'

'There's nothing to tell,' Eve lied, her voice rising in anger. She remembered Cally was still at the kitchen table, no doubt taking everything in and Eve didn't want her to be upset again. She forced herself to be calm. 'I've got nothing more to say,' she told the reporter and began to close the door on him.

'Wait, Mrs Caleigh, Eve. Give me a proper statement.'

The door was shut in his face.

But he was grinning.

40: THE VISITOR

Eve was tucking Cally into bed for her afternoon nap when the doorbell went. It was loud and an ugly sound, an electronic croak rather than a musical ring.

Cally's eyelids were already flickering with tiredness and she took no notice of the interruption. Her soft Bart Simpson doll peered over the edge of the duvet close to Cally's face and she sleepily hugged him even closer, her nose pressed into Bart's cheek. Eve bent over to kiss her young daughter's curled hair but straightened when the doorbell sounded again.

She wondered who could be at the front door in the middle of the afternoon. Had the reporter from the North Devon Dispatch returned to nag her with more unanswerable questions? What if it was the Blaney children's mother come to remonstrate with her? Eve couldn't face that; she hadn't the energy left to deal with irate mothers. But she would certainly ask how Seraphina and her brother had got hold of a door key to Crickley Hall and why they had brought a dead rat into the house! Gabe told her he had found a dead wood pigeon on the doorstep yesterday morning when he was about to go on his regular jog. Had the children planted the bird there? Was it Seraphina's way of getting back at the family because Loren had stood up for herself on the bus? Perhaps they'd intended to leave some poor dead animal every day just out of spite.

Brurrrr—brurrrr…

The doorbell made its irritating croak, the kind of sound whose repetition could put a person on edge. Nothing melodic, nothing galvanizing about it. Instead, it filled the house with a dull dread.

Tiptoeing out to the landing, she looked over the rail down at Crickley Hall's big front door as if it might provide some clues as to who was outside.

Brurrrr—brurrrr...

It echoed round the stone-floored hall, the acoustics making it louder than it should have been. Whoever was out there was persistent. Why not just knock on the kitchen window? Eve asked herself. Everybody else seemed to do that. She was reluctant to open the door, and she didn't know why. Perhaps she was on emotional overload; it had been a rough day so far. Then again, she had been on emotional overload for almost a year now.

Brurrrr—brurrrr…

All right, all right, I'm coming. I don't want to know who you are, I don't want to talk to you, but I'm coming down because I know I have to.

She went to the stairs and descended, glancing out of the tall window as she went by. The sky was clouding over again and the sun, on its downward journey, reddened the clouds' craggy edges. Their dark bulk was laden with rain.

The doorbell grouched yet again and Eve quickened her pace, both annoyed and anxious. Perhaps another local newspaper had got hold of the story—she knew the county had more than one daily journal—and this time she would make no comment, she would politely but firmly close the door on any nosy reporter or photographer who stood outside. A new thought entered her head, causing her to pause at the foot of the staircase. Perhaps the policeman had come back with more inquiries. What could she tell him? Why yes, of course Crickley Hall is haunted, I've seen the discarnate spirits of children myself and we've all heard unaccountable noises, and my daughter, Loren, was thrashed in her sleep last night by something I think might have been the evil ghost of a man called Augustus Cribben, who lived here over sixty years ago. Could she say all that? Could she say it and expect to be believed? She could scarcely believe it herself.

Eve crossed the hall—the perfectly dry hall—but took a diversion towards the cellar door. Bloody thing! Why wouldn't it stay shut?

Brurrrr—brurrrr.

Okay!

Eve pushed the cellar door closed and even turned the key in the lock for all the good it would do. Gabe really had to fix it; it was driving her to distraction.

She finally got to the front door, slid back the floor bolt and twisted the long key. Angrily, she pulled open the door and stared at the visitor on the doorstep.

•

Lili Peel's smile was weak, hardly a smile at all. She seemed nervous, uncertain. As if she were afraid.

'I was beginning to think you weren't in,' she said by way of an opening. 'I kept ringing the bell…'

'Yes. I'm sorry—I was upstairs.' Eve's heart was pounding: she hadn't expected to see the psychic again.

'I'm… I'm sorry too. About yesterday.' Lili looked down at the doorstep for a moment as though truly contrite. 'I know I was a bit brusque with you. I didn't mean to be. I've had time to think about what you told me.'

'You mean you'll help me—us?'

'You didn't leave your phone number, but of course I remembered the house. Wednesday is half-day closing in Pulvington, so I was able to get away from the shop.'

She hadn't answered Eve's question. Eve asked it again.

Lili's blonde hair was turned reddish gold by the setting sun. It also gave her face more colour than Eve recalled, but she knew the psychic's skin was pale, almost washed-out looking. Her green eyes were serious.

'I'm willing to try, Mrs Caleigh,' she said at last. 'I'll help you if I can.'

Eve was curious. 'What made you change your mind?'

'You told me you'd seen the spirits of children. There must be a reason for that. When we spoke yesterday, I could feel something was wrong, not just about you and your own suffering, but wrong with whatever it is that surrounds you. It has to come from this house.'

'Sorry, I don't understand.'

'There has to be a reason why the children who died here haven't passed over, why they're still attached to this place. They need to go on; they shouldn't be lingering here. I felt their misery in your own aura and I want to help them. Psychics, clairvoyants, spiritualists have a duty towards the dead.'

Eve was confused. 'And my own child?'

'I don't know. Once, when I was very young, I communicated with a boy who'd been in a coma for three months. They thought he was going to die and, if they'd turned off the life-support machines, he would have.'

There was a deep sadness in the psychic's manner that touched Eve. Perhaps she'd got Lili Peel all wrong; perhaps the psychic cared too much. Rejecting Eve was her way of protecting herself. It was a sudden insight that Eve intuitively knew was correct, and it made her warm to this young woman who had been so cold towards her yesterday. Standing outside under the darkening sky, Lili looked small and vulnerable; frail even. Completely different to how she had appeared before.

'Please, come in,' Eve invited.

But the moment Lili Peel stepped over the threshold and entered the great hall something seemed to happen to her. She went deathly white and swayed on her feet as if about to faint. She reached out to Eve for support and Eve quickly took the psychic's arm and allowed her to lean against her.

'Are you all right?' Eve was perplexed. 'What's wrong?'

'I… I don't… the presence is so strong. Can't you feel them here?'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'Their spirits—all around, everywhere.'

'The children?'

'Yes. But there's something terribly wrong. There's something else here… something, someone, wicked. Dark. Evil.'