The Smile of a Ghost

Alleged, huh? When I realized I was actually cringing into the stones, like a cornered animal, I… threw out a prayer, like a sort of yelp.

George Lackland came to sit down opposite Merrily, a leather-topped coffee table between them, with a hard-backed loose-leaf file on it.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘there’s always been stories. You expect it, don’t you, in an old place? Different stories all over the town. Catherine of Aragon’s been seen, some say. There’s an old woman who walks through the churchyard — that’s a regular one. But Marion, aye, she’s probably the oldest. The breathing, like someone in a deep sleep, quite a few folk reckon they heard that. Nobody’s said they seen her lately, mind — not in years.’

‘People used to?’ Merrily said.

The Bishop’s chin was sunk into his chest.

‘The White Lady,’ the Mayor said. ‘Marion of the Heath. Walked the ruins. And the path around the walls. And people who used to live in the flats at Castle House used to talk about strange noises and… what do you call it when things misbehave?’

‘Poltergeist phenomena?’

‘Aye. But, like I say, nothing about that lately. Although somebody did blabber on about strange lights round the old yew tree, year or two back.’

‘What kind of lights?’

‘Hovering lights.’ The Mayor made a ball shape between his hands. ‘Orbs of lights.’

Routine stuff. Low-key energy-fluctuation.

The Mayor’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you looking for, exactly?’

‘I’m not looking for anything that isn’t there… at some level,’ Merrily said. ‘It’s just that what you’ve told me doesn’t sound as if it’s particularly bothering anyone.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You see, we don’t consider it our function to investigate all inexplicable phenomena just because they’re there. We like to think that we’re here to try and help people who are frightened or upset by what’s happening to them.’

‘Well…’ George Lackland leaned towards her. ‘Top and bottom of it is, if you don’t mind me saying so, Mrs Watkins, that a great many people have been very gravely upset by these deaths. Folks remember Mrs Mumford in the shop, and they were fond of that boy, too. Walked into my shop one day, asked if he could look at the old fireplace in the back, and the cellar. Very polite, very knowledgeable. All the little tearaways as breaks your windows and writes on your walls, and the one who falls to his death has to be the decent one.’

‘He didn’t fall from the Hanging Tower, though.’

‘He was the start of it. The start of something.’ The Mayor looked into her eyes; maybe he could see the discoloration through the glasses. ‘See, I truly love this old town, Mrs Watkins. We’re not from here; my family’s roots are in East Anglia, but we’ve been here nigh on two centuries — wool merchants originally.’

‘That sounds… pretty local to me, Mr Mayor.’

‘We’re settled, but we don’t feel we own it. Been selling furniture here for over seventy years — real furniture, hardwood, none of your stripped-pine rubbish. We believe in solidness and quality — what this town always stood for. Solidness. We can be relaxed about the side-effects of the tourism and the new people — because we’ve got a solid heart. And the Church… the Church has always played an essential role here, and still does.’

George turned away, staring fiercely into the gas flames.

‘What about the owners of the castle?’ Bernie said. ‘What do they have to say about all this?’ He turned to Merrily. ‘The Earls of Powis, the Herberts, have owned the castle for many generations. Edward Herbert was MP for Ludlow in the early nineteenth century, prior to inheriting the earldom.’

‘Bit of a silence so far,’ the Mayor said. ‘Apart from taking the obvious steps to ensure it don’t happen again — plans to get that window barred, that kind of measure. It’s a question of what other steps might be taken. On what you’d call a spiritual basis.’

‘We’d have to go carefully, George.’ Bernie took a hurried sip from his brandy balloon.

‘Let me put it to you directly,’ Merrily said. ‘Do you personally really believe that the two deaths at the castle are in some way connected with a paranormal presence dating back to the twelfth century?’

George Lackland grimaced at the stupidity of the question.

‘Top and bottom of it is, it don’t matter what I believe, Mrs Watkins. I’m the Mayor. My role is to go along with the will of the people. And among the older residents there’s a strong sense that something’s very wrong. Very bad.’

‘Is there a history of suicide here?’

‘Well, obviously—’

‘I mean in the rather lengthy period between the twelfth century and a few weeks ago.’

The Mayor didn’t reply. Bernie Dunmore shot a warning look at Merrily, to which she didn’t respond.

‘I mean, what actually happened, do you think, to make two teenagers take—’ She bit off the sentence: no suggestion of suicide in Robbie’s case, although after last night… ‘Lose their lives in a place that had been the scene of just one suicide, over eight hundred years ago?’

George Lackland looked at the Bishop. ‘Am I supposed to be able to answer that?’

‘George, I think what Merrily’s saying is that we have levels of response. Perhaps in the old days, the — let’s get the word into the open — the rite of exorcism was enacted without many preliminaries. Today, with the, ah, levels of bureaucracy within the Church…’

‘Is this lady going to help us, Bernard, or not?’

‘Of course she is,’ the Bishop said.

Help us? Merrily had the sense of being woven into someone’s fabric. It was time to tease out George Lackland’s agenda. This was the man to whom the traders and tourist operators had gone when Mumford had started questioning them about Belladonna. This was the man who, as vice-chairman of the police committee, had leaned on the head of Shrewsbury CID, who in turn had contacted Annie Howe to get Mumford warned off.

Right. She took a sip of tonic. ‘Erm… the strange people gathering around this yew tree below the Hanging Tower. With their candles, and their chanting. Who are they, Mr Mayor, do you know?’

‘Not local.’ As if this was all that needed to be said about them.

‘What did they look like?’

‘Oh… stupid. Horror-film clothes. You know the kind of thing.’

‘What I heard,’ Merrily said, ‘was that there’d been quite a few of them around the town recently. Possibly before the deaths.’

The Mayor spread his hands. ‘It’s possible. We get all sorts comes and goes.’

‘And there was a bit of a fight with some local boys.’

‘More of that than there used to be, regrettably — street violence. Too much drink about.’

‘And someone got stabbed?’

‘First I’ve heard of that, Mrs Watkins.’

But she’d seen the twitch of a nerve at the corner of an eye.

‘Perhaps people like this were… attracted here by the ghost stories?’

‘I wouldn’t know about that.’ He smiled apologetically and shook his bony head. ‘To be honest, I feel a little bit daft sitting here in this day and age talking about ghosties and ghoulies and things that goes bump.’

‘Oh, I get used to it,’ Merrily said. ‘But the thing is, before we can organize any kind of remedial action, we have to eliminate all the possible rational explanations. For instance, somebody told me that these kids in fancy dress are probably just fans of… one of your rich settlers? A singer?’

George Lackland said nothing. Nothing twitched this time, but she was sure that she saw a quick glitter of anguish in the hollows of his eyes, and he planted levering hands on his thighs as if his instinct was to walk out.

‘Can’t remember her name… used to sing these mournful songs all about death and… and things like that.’ Merrily smiled ruefully at George. ‘Not your cup of tea, really, I suppose.’

The flame-effect gas fire gasped, the Bishop’s brandy glass chinked on an arm of the sofa as he sat up, and she felt his curiosity uncurling in the air.

‘No,’ the Mayor said at last. ‘Not my cup of tea at all.’

He came to his feet, screwing his eyes shut for a moment and swaying slightly, rubbing a hand wearily over