Property of a Lady

It was a minute or so before I recognized the words, but when I did, a chill traced its way down my spine. I knew what the rhyme was, and I knew what it meant. It sprang from a dark and very ancient belief embedded deep in the consciousness of Man – a belief and a desire stretching all the way back to Old Testament times. It’s the desire to be invisible, soundless, to possess the ability to render an enemy helpless. But underlying that – perhaps even underpinning it – is a deeper, more visceral need, and that’s the need for power over the dead.

You find the belief in the world’s most ancient legends – some of them so old that Time has frayed them to cobwebs. But the belief has its genesis (and that’s not meant as a pun!) in the biblical accounts of how Solomon caused temples to be raised in utter silence and without the use of any heavy tool – most of all without the use of iron, since iron, the substance used for weapons, shortens men’s lives. It’s a belief that’s in Icelandic myths as well: tales of magic-laden stones that will break bolts and bars and also raise the dead. The Persians and Arabians had it, too: they believed a single enchanted word had power to roll back stone doors and open mountains. The story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and the Open Sesame spell, isn’t just a Christmas pantomime.

And here in England is the belief in the Hand of Glory – the light fashioned from the fist of a hanged murderer and lit by graveyard fat and dead men’s hair. The burning hand whose light bursts locks and lulls a house’s occupants into sorcerous sleep.

I don’t believe a syllable of it, of course. But whoever was outside believed. And if this was a gang of Marston Lacy teenagers pretending to be ghosts, they were the most literate and deeply-read ghost-fakes I had ever encountered.

The chanting came again:

‘Open lock to the dead man’s knock . . .

Fly bolt, and bar, and band.

Sleep all who sleep – wake all who wake.

But be as the dead for the dead man’s sake . . .’

I can’t tell how long I sat there, listening to that dreadful voice, hearing the footsteps going round the outside of the house. I believe I managed to scribble a few words in this notebook, although I dare say they won’t make any sense later.

It was the sly chiming of the old clock that roused me to action. A single chime – one o’clock – and it was as if that wizened sound released something and the atmosphere of Charect House shifted again.

And as if the chime was a cue, on the outer door came three loud knocks.

My heart came up into my throat. Sensibly, it could have been an enterprising burglar making sure the house was empty, or the child-stealer looking for a hiding place. It might even have been a gypsy or a tramp looking for somewhere to spend the night.

But I knew it was neither of those things. I knew what it was. The dead man’s knock.

The knock came again, louder and more peremptory this time. I sat absolutely still, hardly even breathing. Because the last – the very last thing – I was going to do was go out into the dark house to investigate the caller’s identity. If he (it would be a “he” of course) was an ordinary living person, it would be the height of folly to open the door at one in the morning. If he wasn’t an ordinary living person, it would be folly of a different kind to open the door.

I stayed where I was, forcing myself to remember how I had gone round the house earlier, systematically locking and bolting every door, then putting the bunch of keys safely in my bag. The bag stood on the hearth in this room, within reach. The house was secure. I was safe. It was all right.

It was not all right, though, and I was not safe at all. Into the silence came a new sound – a slow, stealthy creaking. A door was being opened, and it was opening very slowly and almost unwillingly, as if something was leaning heavily against it.

For anyone reading this, I do know it sounds like classic ghost story stuff, but it was the most frightening thing I’ve ever heard. Then the door banged against a wall, and with a new lurch of fear, I thought – he’s got in. The owner of that dreadful hoarse voice, that figure who carried the bleared light, has got into the house. The lock has opened to the dead man’s knock.