Midwinter of the Spirit

‘So does that mean you’ll be avoiding Mum like the plague?’

‘Oh that’s… not a problem. I’ve had the plague.’

What was on his mind? Did he still have feelings for Mum, despite the exquisite Moon? Or maybe she wasn’t such a trophy.

‘Lol?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Something bothering you?’

‘Er…’ Lol ate the last bit of his fudge cake. ‘In the film – with the kid’s head spinning round and the green bile and the crucifix? All that doesn’t happen simultaneously.’

‘What are you on about?’

‘Those’re completely different scenes – in the film.’

‘Thank you, Lol,’ Jane said, annoyed with him now. ‘I’ll tell Mum. She’ll be ever so reassured.’

The care assistant’s name was Helen Matthews. She lived in Hay-on-Wye, about five miles away. She was about thirty, had two young children, seemed balanced, reliable. ‘It’s the kids I worry about,’ she said, and Merrily was reminded of the poor woman in the Deliverance Study Group video, who’d said something similar. ‘I wouldn’t want to go taking anything back to them, see.’

Despite having dependants and an iffy husband, the woman in the video had still killed herself – clear evidence that paranormal events could drastically affect a person’s mental equilibrium.

Not a problem here. Merrily felt on relatively firm ground with this one.

‘From what you say, this is what we call an imprint, and it usually belongs to a place. It won’t follow you. It can’t get into you. You can’t take it away. It’s like a colour-slide projected on a wall.’

‘Mrs Watkins…’ Helen Matthews was at the edge of the sofa. She wore a white coat, her short black hair was tied back, and her voice shook. ‘You can tell yourself how it won’t harm you, how it isn’t really there, but when you’re on your own in an upstairs passage and it’s late at night and all the doors are shut and the lights are turned down and you know that… that something is following you, and you finally make… make yourself turn round, to reassure yourself there’s nothing there… and there is… There is.’

She shuddered so violently it was almost a convulsion. She held on to the sofa, near tears. Even Susan Thorpe looked unnerved.

‘OK,’ Merrily said gently. ‘Let’s just be sure about this. You say all the doors were closed and the lights were dimmed. Is it possible one of the doors opened and—’

‘No! Definitely not. And if it was… Well, they’re all old ladies. There are only old ladies here at present. This was a man. Or at least a male… a male thing.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘He looked…’ Helen lost it. ‘He looked like a bloody ghost. He walked out of the wall.’

‘Could you see his face?’

‘I think he had a moustache. And I think he was wearing a suit. Like in the old black and white films: double-breasted, wide shoulders sort of thing.’

Merrily glanced at Susan Thorpe, who shook her head.

‘Description like that, it could have been anyone who lived here over the past three-quarters of a century. We’ve only been here four years – moved from Hampshire to be near my mother. I mean, there were no old photo albums lying around the place, and it was a guesthouse before we came. It could be anybody.’

‘Are there any stories about the house? You’re fairly local, Helen. Are there any… I don’t really know what I’m looking for.’

‘Murders? Suicides? I don’t know, but I could ask around in Hay.’

‘Christ’s sake, don’t do that!’ Susan Thorpe rose up. ‘I know what it’s like in Hay. It’ll be all over the town in no time. This is a business we’re running here. Seven jobs depend on us, so let’s not get hysterical. So far, we’ve managed to conceal it from the residents, let’s keep it that way. And anyway, we haven’t seen anything, and no residents have reported anything in the past four years. Why should this… thing start to appear now?’

‘We believe imprints and place-memories can be activated after years and years,’ Merrily said. ‘Sometimes it’s a result of an emotional crisis or a disturbance.’

‘Absolutely not! Nothing like that here at all.’

‘You said yourself that old people can behave like delinquents. Sometimes mental instability, senile dementia…’

‘Any signs of dementia, they have to go, I’m afraid. We aren’t a nursing home. And the only signs of hysteria have been… well, not you, Helen, but certainly your predecessor…’

‘You didn’t see it,’ Helen said quietly. ‘Have you ever seen one, Mrs Watkins?’

‘Possibly. Put it this way, I know what it feels like. I know how frightening it is. But I don’t want to overreact either. I don’t plan to squirt holy water all over the place. What I’d like to do is go up there now, with both of you, and say a few prayers.’

Susan Thorpe sat up. ‘Aloud?’

‘Of course, aloud.’

‘Oh no, we can’t have that. Some of the residents will be in their rooms. They’ll hear you.’

Merrily sighed.

‘I think it’s a good idea,’ Helen Matthews said. ‘I’ll come.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Susan Thorpe stood up, adjusted her hairslide. ‘I can’t have it. Can’t you do it outside – out of earshot? God’s everywhere, isn’t He? Why can’t you go outside?’

‘I could, but I don’t think that would have any effect.’

Helen said, ‘If I’ve seen it, Mrs Thorpe, it’s only a matter of time before one of the old ladies does. What if someone has a heart attack?’

Merrily thought of the video again, and what Huw had said. Bottom line is that our man in Northampton should not have left before administering a proper blessing, leaving her in a state of calm, feeling protected. Yes, suppose someone did have a heart attack?

‘God,’ Susan Thorpe breathed, ‘this is getting beyond a joke.’

‘It never is a joke,’ Merrily said. ‘I’m starting to realize that.’

‘The problem is finding a time when that passage and all the rooms off it are empty. Look, all right… most of the residents totter off to Hardwicke Church on a Sunday morning, as people of that age tend to. What are you doing tomorrow morning?’

‘I’m going to my church, Susan. I’m a vicar.’

‘Oh.’ Susan Thorpe was unembarrassed. ‘You don’t do this sort of thing full-time then?’ Like this diminished Merrily – a part-timer. Susan became agitated. ‘Well, look… look, there’s going to be a party. One of the residents is a hundred years old; we’re having a small soiree for her. I can tell you, old people never miss a party. Suppose, while it was on, we could smuggle you upstairs and you could do your little ceremony? You do work at night?’

‘Your mother will be here then, I suppose.’

‘I should think.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Merrily said.

It would be very interesting to talk to Mrs Thorpe’s mother. Five thousand quid, and instructions to be out by the weekend? Either Dobbs really was going out of his mind, or there was something very odd here. She had to go carefully, though: mustn’t appear to be checking on him. Casually running into the former housekeeper while processing an imprint… that would do fine.

As she left the Glades, Merrily saw that it was snowing lightly out of a sky like stone. Winter deftly gatecrashing autumn’s mournful party.