Michael got to his feet, frantically trying to get his bearings. Was Stephen still here? He groped blindly for the walls, willing the stairs to be within reach. He was just starting to make out vague shapes in the darkness and realizing that he had been going towards the desk instead of the stairs, when cold, dead fingers reached out and tried to curl round his hand.
Michael’s nerve snapped, and he jerked back and scrambled across the room. By now he could make out the shape of the steps, and he was able to find his way up to the hall. He slammed the panelled door and leaned back against it, regaining his breath. Then he locked it, although his hands were shaking so badly he had to make two attempts, and at one level of his mind he was aware of the absurdity of trying to lock up a ghost. But he did it anyway, then he retreated to the library and slammed that door as well.
What now? The prospect of remaining in the house all night filled him with dismay. Mightn’t it be better to leave at once and hope he could get to the village – or any village – with a pub and a spare room? He reached for the phone on the desk, found the card the helpful paramedic had provided, and dialled the local police number.
‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ said the voice at the other end, ‘but we haven’t shifted that tree at Fosse House yet. We’ve been too busy clearing the main road – it’s been a wild old storm. We should get it done first light tomorrow, though. If I were you, I’d stay put.’
‘How far along the road is the tree? From Fosse House, I mean?’
‘Smack across the road about ten yards from the gate,’ said the voice, lugubriously. ‘Blocking the road altogether.’
‘And how far is the village from the house? If I tried walking?’
‘Oh, you can’t do that,’ said the man at once. ‘It’s a good ten miles, and in this weather— Well, you’d be drenched to the skin inside of ten minutes, and likely suffer pneumonia. You stay put is my advice, sir. The men’ll be out there in the morning. But call us back if there are any problems. We’d get out to you if so. Motorbikes, you know. They can get round the tree all right.’ Michael briefly considered asking if he could be provided with a pillion ride to the village, but decided against it. He thanked the man and rang off, wondering if he could risk trying to reach the village on foot. But it would mean walking along the dark lonely drive, and then along the equally dark, lonely road beyond it. All ten miles of it.
Leaving Fosse House did not seem to be an option, so Michael stopped thinking about it and instead contemplated the best way to pass the night. Should he seal himself in the library with crucifixes and garlic wreaths and all the panoply of the ghost-repellants of fiction, and wait for dawn which traditionally sent spirits fleeing? He had told Luisa that Stephen would not harm him, and he still believed that. But then he remembered again those dreadful hands reaching out of the shadows, and he no longer felt as sure.
It was at this point in his thoughts that the phone rang, and Michael, his nerves still on edge, jumped all over again. He reached for it, hoping it might be the police station calling back to say the road was unexpectedly clear after all.
But it was not. It was the hospital to which Luisa Gilmore had been taken. The ward sister he had spoken to earlier said she was extremely sorry to be giving him this bad news, but Miss Gilmore had died half an hour ago.
‘I’m afraid the damage to her heart was too severe. She had a second heart attack shortly after she got here. We tried all the usual methods to revive her, but we weren’t able to.’
Michael had not expected to feel such an acute sense of loss. After a moment he said, ‘That’s so sad. I’m very sorry indeed. I didn’t know her very well, but—’
‘An unusual lady,’ said the sister.
‘Yes.’
‘We have to focus on practicalities, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘We really do need to find next of kin or someone who has authority to – well, to act for her. To make arrangements.’
‘I’ll see if I can find an address book,’ said Michael. ‘Failing that, there must be someone local who will know.’
‘If you could ring us back as soon as possible,’ she said.
‘Yes, of course.’
At first Michael thought he would phone Nell, and then he saw it was approaching midnight, and she would probably be in bed. And despite what she had said, it was a bit late to phone, especially with sad news. He would try to find the information the hospital needed instead. It might even focus his mind and drive back the spooks to make a search for an address book.
An address book … Or a diary?
Somewhat reluctantly, he took from his pocket the journal he had picked up in the underground room. Luisa wanted me to read this, he thought. She wanted me to understand, and she said she trusted me. And on a practical level, it might contain addresses or phone numbers of family.
But it still felt like the worst kind of intrusion, and it was some time before he could bring himself to open it. The pages were all handwritten, and as far as he could see the writing was all in the same hand. There did not appear to be any dates, and there certainly did not seem to be any names and addresses. He flattened it out on the desk, directly under the comforting light cast by the lamp.
He had intended to do no more than glance at the first few pages, after which he was going to steel himself to go up to Luisa’s bedroom and look for a conventional address book. But the opening sentences of the diary acted like a magnet.
‘Today was a good day, because Leonora did not come …’
It seemed to be a journal, pure and simple, and it did not look if it was likely to contain what Michael was looking for. Unless you counted Leonora.
He turned a couple more of the pages.
‘Today I prayed for over an hour to keep Leonora at bay, but she came to me anyway … I wonder how much longer I can fight this … She feared the madness, and I fear it too …’
Michael paused. Despite Luisa’s words, could he really read this? Wasn’t it too private?
But she had said she wanted him to know.
Thirteen