Property of a Lady

The ground floor had two deep bow windows for displays, with the shop behind it and a tiny office. Upstairs was a long L-shaped living room, part of which overlooked the main street, with a kitchen behind. The second floor had three bedrooms and a bathroom.

Nell washed up the supper things, thinking about what Beth had said. The dead man knocking on the door. That was an eerie concept, however you looked at it, and whatever your beliefs. She might have a word with Beth’s teacher tomorrow, to make sure there was no macabre local rhyme doing the rounds in the playground. Older children sometimes deliberately scared younger ones.

For now, though, she would light a fire and curl up with Alice Wilson’s diaries. It was still a delight to have an old-fashioned fire, although it was a bit of a nuisance to have to sweep out the ashes next morning. But tonight she would enjoy the crackling flames. She poured a glass of wine, curled up in the deep sofa, and reached for the yellowing pages.

Alice Wilson’s diary: Charect House, 10.30 p.m.

The old clock’s ticking quietly away to itself in the corner, and I’m not sure that it’s quite as companionable as I thought. In fact, a couple of times I’ve felt like hurling something at its smug, swollen face to shut it up. But here’s a curious thing – twenty minutes ago I approached it with the intention of stuffing my scarf into the works to stop the mechanism, but when it came to it I couldn’t. I can’t explain it – but when I bent down and unlatched the door and saw the pendulum swinging to and fro, I was seized by such a violent aversion that I couldn’t even touch it.

Now that it’s night the house feels colder than it did this afternoon, but before leaving the Black Boar I put on a couple of extra sweaters and a fleece-lined jacket, together with thick flannel trousers and woollen socks. I’ve caught more colds than I can count over the years by spending the night in icily-cold houses, waiting for ghosts who never turn up, so now I swathe myself in layers of wool. I look like a roly-poly Mrs Noah, but there’s nobody to see me except the occasional spook.

11.55 p.m.

I have a feeling that something’s starting to happen. It’s not anything I can easily describe on paper, but it’s as if something’s disturbed the atmosphere. As if Charect House is enclosed in a glass bubble, and something outside is chiselling silently at the glass’s surface, to find a way in. Or even as if the tape recorders might be picking up sounds that humans aren’t supposed to hear. Like the singing of mermaids or the sonar shrieks of bats. Or the hopeless sobbing of tormented souls, unable to leave a beloved home . . .

(This last sentence was barely legible, having been impatiently scored through, as if the writer had been exasperated at her sudden display of nerves, or perhaps even embarrassed by it. The next section was written clearly and decisively, as if the pen had been firmly pressed down on the page with the aim of dispelling any weakness.)

12.15 a.m.

We’ve passed the witching hour – although it always amuses me that people set such store by midnight, as if ghosts have wristwatches and check them worriedly to make sure they aren’t missing an appointment to haunt somewhere. ‘Dear me, I see it’s five to twelve already, I’d better be off or I’ll be late for the moated grange . . .’

What I will admit is that there can sometimes be a vague eeriness about the crossing of one day to the next, or one year to the next, as if something invisible’s being handed from one pair of hands to another. And I have to say that when the old clock in here chimed twelve a short time ago, it startled me considerably. (It’s somehow not a very nice chime either, although that’s probably due to rust in the mechanism.)

It was shortly after the chiming of the clock that something happened.