‘Don’t apologise. I know we sound a little odd, but we’ve been doing this for years,’ Bob went on. ‘We’ve had a few articles published in journals. Got a couple of books up on Amazon. So you see we do have similar lines of work.’
‘Apart from one tiny fact …’ He smiled, awkwardly. ‘I don’t actually believe in the supernatural.’
‘But it’s still your bread and butter, isn’t it? It’s still what fills your mind each day. You know … the strange stuff … the gods and monsters.’
Joyce leant forward a little. ‘And it is the strange things that grab you, Matt. I can tell that. In fact, it’s been the case even back when you were a little boy, hasn’t it? It’s very, very clear from your eyes.’
‘M-hmm,’ Matt said, in almost a groan.
‘So you see, you are very similar to us.’
Matt waited for a moment, then he checked his watch. ‘So … Steph Ellis. Why did she come to you?’
‘Because she was terrified,’ Bob said. ‘She was connected with an old case we worked on, back when we were still teachers. Only she felt those forces were opening back up again. And Joyce happens to think she’s right.’
Matt noticed Joyce had reached up to her neck. She pulled out a chain with what looked like an Egyptian ankh dangling on the end. She turned it gently in her fingers.
‘What case?’
Joyce stopped turning the chain. ‘The Barley Street Poltergeist.’
Another expectant silence.
‘Sorry, but I haven’t heard of that one.’
‘I suppose it’s not one of the famous cases. It was hardly an Enfield or a Borley, plus it only lasted a week. But it was powerful,’ Bob said. ‘Plus … and here’s the best bit, Matt … it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from where you’re sitting right now.’
Matt sat straighter. Started to look around.
‘Number 29 Barley Street …’ Bob’s voice switched to pantomime as he wiggled wizard fingers to point. ‘It’s right behind you.’
Matt followed Bob’s gaze and twisted himself round. The gnarled, knuckled finger of the oak tree stretched toward the gazebo. Not far from it was a small lake, with a happy family of swans gliding across the surface, in single file. And beyond that was a long stretch of grass where a few guys were practising their rugby throw. It was at the far end that he could see a set of iron railings and a neat row of tall, thin trees. The windows from a long row of Victorian terraced houses peeped through the dead, empty branches.
‘Right there?’
‘Right there,’ Bob nodded. ‘The one with the green door.’
He could see it, very clearly, though it hardly looked like Amityville. Just a Victorian terrace, with one of those protruding bay windows he quite liked. The type of sill you’d sit up on and read comics in when you were a kid. Even from here he could tell that the grass in the front lawn looked like it hadn’t been cut in aeons.
‘A lady called Mary Wasson still lives there but the incident we’re talking about happened in 2001,’ Bob said. ‘Back then Mary lived there with her two daughters. Just after Halloween, in the first week of November of that year, they started reporting anomalous phenomena in the house. Taps came on at full pelt in the middle of the night. Strange rattles and bangs were heard as they slept. The youngest girl was nine at the time … her name was Holly Wasson. One morning she woke with claw marks on her back and legs.’
‘Claws?’ Matt set his cup down. ‘Did they have pets?’
‘They did. A cat called Pob … but it had a very good alibi,’ Bob grinned. ‘It had died a few months before. Besides, these marks were much larger than a cat or dog. It was heady stuff, Matt. Very frightening. The local papers reported it as a poltergeist, which is certainly how it’s known as, but …’
‘But?’
‘That was just a symptom. Barley Street was much more than a poltergeist. Much more than just a mischievous spirit.’
‘It was an infestation,’ Joyce said.
Matt finally took his eyes off the house and turned back round. ‘You mean a demon?’
‘We think so,’ she said. ‘Or at least an extremely negative spectral energy. One with, I believe, a distinct personality. Something that could manifest itself …’ She dropped her eyes to the floor. ‘One that was very destructive and very, very old.’
He looked at them both and at how earnestly they sat there, wringing their hands, looking pained. At one point Bob reached over and gave Joyce a reassuring pat on the knee. It was the sort of thing old couples do, when they recall a difficult trip to the doctor’s. A part of him was tempted to guffaw at them, just like that. To say: listen to yourselves! You’re in your sixties. You should know better, look at the way you’re building all this up. The necklace-clutching high drama of it. But he didn’t say anything like that, and frankly he didn’t want to. For a start, maybe they’d given those symbols to Steph. The Tau-Rho and the pelican. So offending them might make them clam up from tying up that particular loose end. But more than that, he kind of liked them both. Annoyingly they had a way about them. A kindness.
Matt leaned forward, elbows on knees. ‘But how’s this old Wasson case linked with Steph Ellis?’
That seemed to make Bob a little giddy, ‘Oh, I am glad that you’re interested. Someone of your calibre.’
‘Hey, I’m just a teacher. Just like you guys. So … about Steph?’
‘Steph was very good friends with Mary’s daughter, back then. Not Holly, but the older one, Rachel Wasson. There was a little troupe of girls in those days. As thick as thieves. And how’s this for kismet …’ Bob pointed a finger at Matt. ‘Guess who’s going to be walking up those gazebo steps …’ He checked his watch. ‘Any. Minute. Now?’
Matt feigned
