Property of a Lady

1.15 a.m.

There’s been no further sound, but he’s out there – I can feel that he is. And I’m sitting here, summoning up my courage to go out of this room and search for him. I don’t believe what I saw was a manifestation, I don’t, but I can no longer ignore what’s happened. And the thought of J. Lloyd’s disgust if I have to tell him I ducked out of the investigation because I was frightened is spurring me on. J. Lloyd, if you ever read this, you’ll know if anything did happen to me tonight, it was your fault.

The Polaroid’s still round my neck on its strap, and I’ll take pictures of everything that moves. I’ll check the light-sensitive cameras in each room as well and the tape recorders. What if that grisly chanting has been recorded? But what if it hasn’t . . . ? Because there are sounds humans aren’t meant to hear, remember? The murmuring of demons, the secret whispering of wolves. And the chanting of a dark charm to open doors and cast slumber over human brains . . .

I’ll take the heavy torch with me, too. Its light will be a comfort, and it’ll also be a good weapon if this turns out to be a flesh and blood prowler. Oh God, if only it’s a living human intruder, after nothing more sinister than money.

1.30 a.m.

As I went out of the library, my nerves were jangling like piano wires. The camera clanked against the torch as I opened the door. In that listening silence it was loud enough to waken the dead, although it was starting to seem as if the dead needed no waking – they were already rampaging around the house.

As I stood in the hall, everywhere was silent and cold moonlight trickled through the narrow windows, lying across the dusty oak floor like flecks of silver.

I looked into each of the rooms in turn. The dining room was silent and still, but when I opened the door of the morning room, something reached down to brush soft, light fingers across my face. I gave a half-scream and nearly dropped the torch, but then I realized it was simply the long cobwebs drifting down from above, disturbed by the current of air from the open door. I brushed them away, shone the torch on an empty room, and went along to the scullery. It seemed unlikely that with the whole house at its disposal, a ghost would choose to hide in extreme discomfort in a dank, evil-smelling scullery, but I still checked. But nothing was moving in the kitchens, unless you count the presence of several healthy-looking black beetles in the copper washtub and some lively mould working its way across the windows. I shone the torch on it with distaste and wished myself back in my flat in Peckham, with everything clean and organized and unthreatening. Actually, I wished to be anywhere in the world other than in this house.

Eventually, I stood at the foot of the stairs. They were in semi-darkness, but some light came in from a tall window on the half-landing. A hundred years ago, ladies would have sat there to recover their energy after the effort of rising and dressing each morning, or to rest on the way up the stairs in the evening. No one was there now, of course. Or was there? My heart began to bang against my ribs, and I peered through the gloom, hesitant to advertise my presence by shining the torch. But, of course, there was no one there. It was the large, damp stain on the upper wall that was creating the illusion of a figure again – the stain that earlier on had looked so much like a thickset man.

But it was not the discoloured patch at all. Someone was there. A man – his features in deep shadow – was standing at the head of the stairs, his head bowed as if looking down into the stairwell.