The Secret of Crickley Hall (57 page)

•

There was a vehicle parked in the short bay area, but it wasn't Gabe Caleigh's. Lili knew he drove a Range Rover and this was another make entirely, a Ford of some kind. The rain was beating down so hard and the night was so dark—except when lightning strobed; then everything became a dramatic silvery-grey—she couldn't even tell its colour. The Range Rover was not to be seen and she briefly wondered if the Caleigh family had left the house. But then she saw the dull glow of a lighted window across the river. She parked close behind the Ford and her headlights revealed it to be a Mondeo, dark red in colour. A shallow spray haloed its roof as rain bounced off the metal.

As soon as Lili got out of her car she was drenched, her blonde hair darkened and flattened to her scalp. She wished she had brought an umbrella along—her mind had been too preoccupied when she had dashed from the flat—but then dismissed the idea: it would easily have blown away in this gale. Leaning forward, shoulders hunched almost to her ears and holding her coat closed with one hand, she made her way to the bridge.

Pausing before stepping on to it, Lili looked over at Crickley Hall. There were lights on in most of the windows, she now saw, upstairs and down; she thought she even saw a glow coming from the small attic windows. Holding onto the handrail, the psychic put one tentative ankle-booted foot onto the bridge and stopped. She could feel the wooden structure shaking beneath her.

Dark though the night was, she could see the white spume of the hurtling, swollen river. The wild waters were only inches below the foot planks of the bridge, and spray misted over the boards so that they were dangerously slippery. She gripped the handrail more tightly.

Lightning zigzagged from the sky and in its argent illumination the river looked terrifying, as if about to burst its banks. Broken tree branches, twigs and loose shrubbery cluttered against the rail on the other side, and the rail she held onto quivered in her grip.

With great trepidation, she placed her other foot on the bridge. It seemed even more shaky now that she had both feet on the walkway, even more unstable. Sliding her hand along the soaked rail, Lili warily moved further on, the wind whipping rain against her exposed face, her boots slipping on the bridge's slick surface. Halfway across she felt the whole structure shift, as if the raging water underneath might carry it away. The bridge only moved an inch or so, but nevertheless it was enough to make her panic.

The psychic ran the rest of the way, her feet skidding on the boards, only her hand on the rail saving her from falling. Just before she reached the end, the bridge lurched again as if to break free of its supports, and the movement, slight though it was, sent Lili staggering forwards so that she crashed to her knees onto the pathway.

She hurt her hands taking her weight, and her knees would have been grazed had she not been wearing a coat and skirt that covered them. Picking herself up and grimacing at the sharp sting in both hands, Lili hurried towards the house, crouching against the rain. Something caught her shoulder, a hard knock as if someone had punched her, and she wheeled round, expecting to be attacked. She saw movement in the darkness of the night, something small and rectangular falling away from her. The swing was lit up by another flash of lightning and it was coming back towards her at speed. But this time she was able to step backwards off the path so that it missed her. She sensed its heaviness as the wooden seat reached its highest point a foot or so above her head.

Although the psychic knew its motion was caused by the gale-force wind, she could not help but feel that the swing had hit her deliberately, conspiring somehow with the lightning-felled tree and the unstable bridge to keep her away from Crickley Hall.

Chiding herself for being melodramatic and almost letting her imagination run away with her, Lili continued her difficult journey to the house.

She got to the big front door and pressed hard on the bell button by its side. The storm was too loud for her to hear anything from inside and she pushed the bell once again, then banged on the wood with the heel of her fist.

'Eve!'
she called out.
'It's Lili Peel. Please come to the door!'

Certain it wouldn't work but trying it anyway, she turned the old painted-black doorknob and was surprised when the wind blew the door inwards.

•

Her matted hair flat against her head, its ends dripping raindrops onto the floor, Lili entered Crickley Hall. The wind blustered in behind her, bringing rain with it. She quickly pushed the front door shut, fighting the wind to do so.

With the door closed and the noise of the storm muffled, the psychic turned to face the grand hall again. She had half expected to be overwhelmed by invisible presences like the first time she had arrived here, but there was nothing—she sensed no overwrought spirits, nor anything bad oppressing the atmosphere. The vast, stone-flagged room that felt like some self-aggrandizing billionaire's mausoleum was devoid of unearthly energies. But there were puddles of water, some as big as pools, scattered around the floor. Lili regarded them curiously, then movement caught her eye.

'Lili?' she heard a surprised voice say.

Looking up, the psychic saw Eve Caleigh peering down at her from the hall's balcony. She had obviously emerged from a room along the landing. Lili heard Eve draw in a sharp breath when she saw the puddles that lay around the ground floor. Eve quickly went to the stairs and hurried down them, her face showing concern. She avoided the water as she came towards Lili.

'It
must
be the rain,' Eve said quietly, as if to herself rather than to the psychic.

Lili saw the usual aura of sadness round Eve, but now its greyness was deeper and more lifeless.

'Sony, Lili,' Eve apologized as she drew near. 'I heard the doorbell, but I was settling Cally into her bed. I'm hoping she'll drift off to sleep soon.'

Lili looked at the other woman with pity. 'Eve… your son. I'm so sorry.'

Eve stammered. 'You—you know? You sensed that?'

'He's at rest now. Nothing more can ever harm him.'

She thought that Eve might crumble, might break down in tears, but the bereaved mother was strong and regained her composure. Lili was relieved.

'What brought you here tonight?' Eve asked detachedly. 'The weather…'

'I couldn't let the storm prevent me from coming. It's important that I'm here. I think you'll need me.'

'I don't understand.' Eve gave a small shake of her head.

'I can feel it now. The house felt empty a few moments ago, but now I sense something coming through, as if they've been waiting for me.'

'The children?' Eve stared intently into Lili's green eyes. 'I felt something impending all morning, but I thought it was because of Cam.'

'No. I told you, your little boy is at peace. What's going to happen tonight is nothing to do with him.'

That's why you came here? The children brought you here?'

'They called me. I had to come.'

A week ago, she might have thought the psychic's words were self-delusional, but everything had changed for Eve now. Eve
believed
Crickley Hall was being haunted by the ghosts of children who had once lived in the house. But they were not alone; there was a darker entity here also. Eve herself sensed this.

Her question was in earnest. 'Why do you think they've called you, Lili? There has to be a reason, doesn't there? The hauntings must have a purpose.'

But in answer, the psychic merely closed her eyes and mentally reached out to the orphans who had died in Crickley Hall. Nothing happened. She could not visualize them. Yet the first time she had entered the house she had almost been overwhelmed by a great pressure, an emotional barrage that had made her feel faint. She knew there was contact between herself and the spirits here—she sensed their unhappiness, their pleadings—but they had not come through clearly. Something or someone was holding them back. Something or someone they feared. And now she could sense it herself.

Lili's eyes snapped open as if she had been physically stunned. Whatever it was, it was feeding off the psychic energy of the house's occupants, including her own. She could feel strength draining from her.

'It's more powerful than them,' she murmured, more to herself than Eve.

Eve touched her arm. 'Lili, are you all right?'

But the psychic looked puzzled rather than weakened.

'There's something very wrong.' Lili looked around, her eyes wide. She looked at the cellar door, which was ajar; she looked up at the L-shaped landing, which was empty. She looked at the broad, imposing staircase and she shuddered.

'Sometimes stairways act like a vortex for spirits,' she told Eve. 'It's because there's so much energy there with people using it all the time, and the spirits are drawn to that energy. There's something there but I can't tell what it is.'

Lightning flashed outside the tall window over the stairs, blanching each separate pane of glass. Thunder seemed to roll along the roof itself.

'Eve!' Lili suddenly said, making the other woman start. 'D'you have anything that belonged to the children? The children who died here, I mean. Anything that might have been left behind years ago.'

Eve shook her head and was about to say no, when she remembered the items Gabe had found hidden behind the landing cupboard. The Punishment Book, the thin, supple cane—the photograph of the Cribbens with the children!

'Wait here,' she told the psychic and dashed into the kitchen, leaving Lili alone in the cavernous hall.

Lili took a moment to study the pools that spread across the floor. There were no drips from the high ceiling that she could see, and how could the water seep through the floor if there was a cellar below? Maybe there was a layer of earth or a cavity between floor and cellar ceiling that rainwater could have soaked into from underneath the property's solid walls.

Eve hurried back from the kitchen clutching a photograph in one hand and a child's colourful toy, an old-fashioned spinning top, in the other. She showed Lili the spinning top first.

'It's a toy Gabe and I found in a locked storeroom next to the children's dormitory. There was a lot of stuff in there—more toys and school things. All the toys were old but looked new. We think they'd never been used.' Eve eyed the spinning top nervously. 'Once we'd wiped off the dust, it came up like this. When I was alone last Monday, I spun it and saw the ghosts of the children.'

'You mean you saw their images in the top?' Lili pointed to the graphics printed on the spinning top's metal shell.

'No. I saw real children here, in the hall. Except they weren't real, they were ghosts. They were dancing in a circle. But Mr Pyke suggested that watching the top spinning—listening to the humming noise it made as it spun fast, seeing the colours turn to white—might have caused me to hallucinate.'

'Who's Mr Pyke?' Lili asked, curious.

'He came yesterday. He calls himself a ghost-hunter, a psychic investigator, and he convinced Gabe he could prove the house wasn't haunted. He's here now, upstairs in the old dormitory arranging his equipment. Loren is with him.'

Eve realized that Pyke and her daughter had been gone a long time. Mr Pyke may have been charming, but what did they know about him? She began to grow anxious.

The psychic took the toy from Eve and inspected it.

'Maybe the children did play with it before it was taken away and put in the storeroom.' Lili lightly ran her fingers over the top's brightly coloured surface. 'I can feel a connection with them.'

'And here's a photograph Gabe found. It was hidden behind a false wall in a cupboard upstairs.' Eve proffered the old black-and-white picture.

Lili placed the spinning top on the floor at her feet and accepted the photograph. She felt her heart leap when she held it in her hands, for at last she could see the children who had come to Crickley Hall as evacuees, she could know what they looked like.

She examined each face in turn, beginning with the back row, frowning once, then moving on. She came to a pretty young woman whom Lili assumed was one of the teachers; there was something infinitely sad in her countenance.

In the middle of the front row of smaller children and seated on chairs were a man and woman of similar features to each other. They both looked hard, mean, and they seemed to regard the camera with hostile suspicion. A disturbing flutter ran through Lili and she quickly looked away.

But her eyes returned to the one child—although he looked more than a child and was certainly older than the others—that she had frowned at before. The boy was grinning, the only person in the photograph to do so, but his eyes did not match the grin. They were sly, mad eyes. Lili sensed it.

She swayed unsteadily and Eve thought the psychic was about to faint again. But Lili caught herself.

Pointing at the grinning boy in the photograph, she said: 'D'you know anything about him?'

'As a matter of fact, I do,' Eve replied. 'The gardener here has worked for different owners of Crickley Hall for ever, it seems. Percy was even here when the evacuees came down from London to stay. He told us about that particular boy and it was nothing good. The other children didn't like him, but apparently he was a favourite of the Cribbens. I think his name was Maurice. Maurice something-or-other. Stannard? No, it was Stafford. Maurice Stafford.'

'I sense bad things about him.' Lili frowned again and this time it was more deeply, more concentrated. 'There's something wrong with him. I think he was very wicked.'

'He was just a boy,' Eve said. 'He was too young to be wicked.'

'This one was born that way. It wasn't something he learned. There's some kind of connection between him and the two adults at the front. You called them the Cribbens—husband and wife?'

'Brother and sister.'

'Yes, the likeness is obvious. This boy, Maurice Stafford, he learned evil from those two. I can feel it so strongly. Oh God—' the photograph shook in the psychic's hands—'it's becoming clearer. He did the children great harm.'