Whitehill staggered back nearly falling off the curb and walked away swiftly casting several glances at Mike over his shoulder.
Finally at a safe distance he paused, turned and yelled, “You’re a nutter, you are,” before continuing.
“Very possibly,” said Mike under his breath. He turned round to receive a reprimand from Becks for his un-clerical behaviour to find she had missed the whole confrontation. She was staring intently at the bushes underneath the trees further up the street. “What is it?” asked Mike breaking her trance.
“Oh nothing, I just thought I saw something,” said Becks distractedly, “are you coming to see me?”
”Yes,” admitted Mike. “You know you said I could talk to you anytime, well how about now?”
“Fine,” said Becks finally retrieving her keys, “come in. Oh what did you say to Jesse Whitehill?”
“Well I told him to take some time out and reflect on his lifestyle and behaviour,” deadpanned Mike.
Becks raised an eyebrow.
“Then I told him to piss off,” he admitted.
“Good, let’s hope he does,” smiled Becks opening the door and ushering Mike inside.
As they went in to the house, a small figure in a yellow duffle coat in the bushes up the street followed Jesse Whitehill with her eyes.
“Nasty man,” spat Ellie angrily, “You shouldn’t have done that, you shouldn’t have kicked Cookie.”
*
Becks put the kettle on. While it boiled Mike told her about the conversation he’d had with Tom Preston, and his sighting of Ellie and his nightmare.
“Wow,” she said looking thoughtful. “You know normally I would tell you to get a grip, but I think I’ve just seen something strange myself. While you and Jesse Whitehill were having a heart to heart, something caught my eye in the bushes just up the street, a flash of yellow. When I turned to look properly it was a little girl in a yellow duffle coat. Difficult to tell at this distance, but I would swear it was Ellie Parsons. Then I blinked and she was gone.” She paused,” What does all this mean Mike?”
Mike exhaled loudly, “It means the sooner Tom and Gregor get here the better. I really am the last person you would choose to deal with this sort of thing.”
“Did you not deal with this kind of thing with Tom’s group?” asked Becks.
“Yes,” replied Mike slowly, “but I simply couldn’t hack it. You have to be very strong to do that kind of work, no doubts, no weakness, your faith has to be solid as a rock. I thought mine was, but I was wrong. Whatever it was that had got hold of the girl, Amanda Poole. It sussed me out straight away. It knew my faith was shaky, knew I had doubts, and it went for me. The last thing I remember before I blacked out was this awful, inhuman voice repeating my name over and over. Thank God Gregor got me out of there.”
Mike leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to block out the memories. “I let her down, and I’m worried that I will let people down again.” Becks sat down next to Mike and put her arm round him.
“You won’t let anyone down Mike, you’re too good a man for that.”
Mike smiled grimly. “I hope you’re right.”
*
Jane Betts knew something was wrong as soon as she entered the classroom. Her classroom assistant, Neeta, was trying to get the kids to sit at their desks, but they were huddled together round three or four of the girls who were crying.
“What’s wrong?” she said gently as she went over to them.
“Carol says she’s seen a ghost but she hasn’t really,” said one of girls spitefully.
“I did see a ghost Miss Betts,” wailed Carol, “So did Gaynor and Belinda. It was Ellie Parsons.” Neeta looked at Jane for support. Jane thought of something to say but Gary Koenig got in first.
“If it was Ellie Parsons you wouldn’t be able to recognize her, she got splattered by a truck,” he sneered with relish.
“Gary, don’t talk like that,” snapped Jane, louder than she had intended to.
“Where was this?” she asked Carol.
“Outside the railings over near the old climbing frame Miss, when the bell went and we came back in, she stayed there,” said Carol stifling sobs.
“Well I’m sure it was just another girl wearing similar clothes,” Jane continued in as reassuring voice as she could muster. “But, to put your minds at rest, I’ll just go and check, all pupils should be back in class now anyway.” And none of them should be outside the railings she said to herself. She left Neeta in charge of the class and went to take a look. The last thing she heard as she shut the classroom door was Gary Koenig cackling “Splattered like a fly” to the general amusement of his cronies. She really didn’t like that kid very much. She went out by the side door and rounded the corner to the playground. It was empty. The wind was getting up, roaring through the tree branches and driving large waves of leaves across the grey tarmac playground. She walked over and checked that the gate out to the road was locked. It was. Unless they had climbed over the six foot railings, none of the pupils had got out that way. She turned her attention to the corner of the playground where the old climbing frame was. It was under the shadow of several large trees and was dark. Too dark to see anything from where she was standing. She followed the railings down to the corner and stopped just short. Hesitating momentarily she stepped in to the shadows. It took a couple of seconds for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. There was nobody there. Just some leaves piled up against the old climbing dome. It was surprisingly quiet and calm in the darkness under the trees, a little like stepping into a cave. Jane cast her eyes round once more then turned round and started to head back to the school building but stopped. The hairs on the back of her neck started to rise. She could feel something behind her. She wanted to keep walking, but resisted the urge and slowly turned around. Her heart nearly stopped. No more than fifteen feet away from her, on the outside of the railings, stood Ellie Parsons. She had both hands on the railings and was staring through the bars in to the playground with an expression of desperate sadness on her little face.
“Ellie,” gasped Jane putting her hand to her mouth. Ellie looked right at her.
“Hello Miss Betts,” she said in a voice that was almost carried away by the wind. Jane blinked and Ellie was no longer there. She must have stood there for a full minute before composing herself and heading off, rather quickly, back to the school building
*
Mike unpacked his shopping and stacked things neatly in his kitchen cupboards. He had spent most of the day with Rebecca. They’d gone to the supermarket in Horwich. Then she’d made Spaghetti Bolognese for them both for dinner.
After dinner she opened a bottle of wine, and they chatted easily to each other in her lounge, sharing each other’s history. Both her parents were dead, her only family was a sister up in the north east. Mike too had a sister, and both his parents were still alive and well. They liked the same food, and films. But were poles apart on music. Another bottle of wine was opened and the time drifted by so quickly that it was dark when Mike next looked out of the window. Eventually, after accompanying Becks on her evening walk with cookie, he had headed back to the vicarage with his shopping bags.
He felt stronger. Telling Becks what was going on meant he felt less alone. Besides, he didn’t want to keep things from Becks. The fact that she had seen the ghost herself was good, in that it meant he was not imagining things, but could mean something even bigger was going on. He spent some time on the computer. He sent an e-mail to the Bishop’s assistant, saying how well he was settling in and how his first sermon had gone well, he didn’t actually lie, just left out the other stuff. He made tea instead of coffee and had a couple of jammy dodgers (he had stocked up). He watched TV until he was tired and headed off to bed early.
He was on the same escalator, the same appalling scenes on the video screens. The first showed two children sitting at a kitchen table smiling. Brother and sister. Once again he didn’t know how but he knew this. The girl took her
younger brother brutally by the hair, and holding his head still. Picked up a corkscrew from the table and started to screw it into his ear. The boy screamed, blood spurted and the girl laughed and nodded her head as if someone had just showed her a party trick.
The second showed a couple naked, a slim pretty girl astride a fat man. His hands were tied above his head with brown packing tape. A rag stuffed into his mouth. She ran her hands up over his chest and his face then plunged her long fingernails slowly into his eyes, going deeper and deeper as he bucked and writhed in agony. Finally he gave one last shudder and died. She slowly pulled her bloodied fingers out, smeared the blood on her breasts and looked directly at Mike and blew him a kiss. He tore his eyes away from the video screens and looked down ahead of him. Ellie turned round and smiled. This time she beckoned him to hurry up as well. The red glow at the end of the escalator was closer now.
The dream left Mike physically sick and almost totally drained. He sat on the edge of the bed for an hour, not sure what to do for the best. He eventually got back in bed and lay awake till the sun came up.
*
Gareth moaned and tried to push himself further in to the corner of the room, his pillow jammed over his ears to block out the voice, her voice. He had put off going to bed as long as possible but finally his mother had snapped at him to get to bed and leave her in peace. It started as before, Ellie throwing stones at his window, and finally he went to look. She started talking to him, nasty things about him and how he would go to hell and burn forever. It was impossible, she was down in the garden, but her voice was somehow inside his head. He finally staggered away from the window and curled up on the floor in the corner of the room, but still the voice was in his head, hour after hour after hour.
*
Robert sat on the edge of his bed. It was late, very late. Mum and dad had gone to bed hours ago. He stared at the spot near the window where Ellie had previously appeared. Where was she? Why had she stopped coming? He could feel his eyes closing against his will. Eventually he crawled into bed and immediately fell asleep.
Chapter Six - Tuesday
The sun finally crawled over the horizon, another night of very little sleep. Mike yawned and drank another cup of coffee, he felt dead on his feet. He pottered round the vicarage trying to catch up on a few things but was too tired to concentrate on anything properly. He eventually curled up on the sofa and got a couple of hours sleep.
He had arranged to meet Becks for lunch at the pub. He got there before her and got the drinks in and ordered some food. When Becks arrived, they waited for their sandwiches at the bar then took them to a table. Kenny was distracted, eyeing a pair of young Asian hikers suspiciously as they tucked into ploughman’s lunches, just on the off chance they were suicide bombers. Becks shook her head sadly at his behaviour but had more pressing business. One of the mothers of the girls who had seen Ellie the day before had mentioned what had happened to Becks when she’d bumped into her while she was walking Cookie. Becks knew Jane Betts quite well and had phoned her to ask what had happened. She’d arranged to meet her at the school after lunch to talk and had agreed that Mike could come with her.
“She was pretty evasive, actually,” said Becks, “And that’s not like Jane.”
“This is a very high level of activity,” said Mike worriedly, “and it’s not just one person it’s several.” They finished their drinks and headed over to the school.
They had to buzz an intercom to get into the school. Jane Betts came to let them in personally, escorting them to her office, a brisk neat businesslike lady. She probably had schoolteacher stamped through her like a stick of rock.
“We’re not keeping you from your class are we?” asked Mike.
“No, I’m deputy head as well as a teacher, so I arranged for someone else to cover,” replied Jane, “Rank has some privileges.” They sat down in her office.
“So, exactly what happened yesterday?” said Becks.
“Well,” said Jane leaning back in her chair, “After break, some of the girls were upset, they claimed to have seen a girl standing outside the school railings and they were absolutely convinced it was Ellie Parsons. Well they are all eight or nine years old and were classmates of Ellie and miss her, so I of course assumed they’d made a mistake and it was another child. But no pupils are supposed to be outside the railings, we’re a very secure site, so I went to take a look, and,” she paused, “There she was, as large as life. It was Ellie.”
“You actually saw her,” gasped Becks.
“Yes,” said Jane “And she saw me, she actually said hello, then the next second she was gone.” She leaned forward and spread both her hands on her desk blotter, “that’s what happened yesterday.” She looked at them both coolly.
“The obvious question,” said Mike awkwardly, “Is could you have made a mistake?” Jane looked at him even more coolly,
“I am not nine years old Mr Cunningham and I knew Ellie very well. It was her.”
“I had to ask,” continued Mike apologetically, “So what did you do?”
“Well I told them that they had made a mistake and it was someone else,” sighed Jane, “but in a village this size word soon gets around. The girls who saw her are going to get a hard time for saying it and I know they are telling the truth, even though I don’t believe in ghosts.” She paused before correcting herself, “Didn’t believe in ghosts.”
“Would you like me to talk to the pupils,” offered Mike. Jane considered her reply carefully.
“Please don’t take offence Mr Cunningham, but I don’t believe in God, I think peoples religious beliefs are their own concern and actually should be kept out of school completely. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” replied Mike, “If that’s what you believe, that’s fine, but if you ever do need to talk about things, for you or the children, you know where to find me.” Jane Betts smiled,
“I’m a pretty devout atheist Mr Cunningham, you’ve got no chance of persuading me of the existence of God.”
“Oh I don’t know smiled Mike, “you didn’t believe in ghosts this time yesterday.”
*
“You just had to have the last word didn’t you,” said Becks smiling, Mike just shrugged in reply. They had left Jane Betts to go back to her class and were on the path outside the school railings where Ellie had been seen the previous day. There was nothing to see there, so they retraced their steps along the railings back to the road. The wind had died down a little but it still moaned through the tree branches and drove piles of fallen leaves around before dumping them against walls and buildings. The road went left over the reservoir and right into the village. Ahead across the road there was a gap in the stone wall and a few steps leading up to the graveyard. On a hunch, Mike crossed the road and headed up the steps, followed by Becks.
“Where is Ellie buried?” asked Mike.
“Over in that corner, the most recent grave,” replied Becks pointing. They made their way in that direction. The tall old gravestones hid the grave from view until they were almost on top of it. They rounded the last big family tomb and both stopped dead in their tracks. There, no more than twenty feet away stood Ellie, looking at her own grave. Becks put her hand to her mouth. Mike swallowed hard then hesitantly took a couple of steps forward before stopping again. He was about to call out to Ellie when she turned round and looked straight at him, a look of puzzlement on her face.
“You’re Michael aren’t you?” she asked. Mike took several seconds to compose himself then replied,
“Yes Ellie, my name is Michael.” She smiled and was gone.
“She never even met you, so how the hell can she know your name,” said Becks incredulously back at the vicarage. They had both been shaken by the encounter and had said very little since leaving the graveyard.
“I know,” said Mike, trying to rationalize the episode. “You know that in the very few cases of genuine haunting, the ghosts are the unquiet spirits of people who simply can’t accept
that they have died, they have unfinished business of some nature. You need to identify the spirit then in theory if you called upon the ghost by name and told them they were dead and need to move on, they should depart. But Ellie Parsons was looking at her own gravestone.” He looked at Becks and shook his head, “None of this adds up.”
*
Joan Worthington was in a bad mood. Gareth had come home from college an hour ago and they had eaten dinner, then instead of clearing off upstairs to stick his headphones on and listen to his awful music, he had hung around getting in the way and spoiling her telly watching. He had done the same thing last night as well, probably just being awkward. In the end she had told him to clear off upstairs out of the way. She stood up and peered through the curtains at the already darkened street. She didn’t like this time of year, the night closed in earlier every day, leaving less time to get anything done in daylight, and she absolutely refused to leave the house after dark. She pulled the curtain closed again and went back to her television.
*
Jesse Whitehill yawned and checked the clock. He had slept longer than he intended to. The bedroom was freezing. Despite the best efforts of the electric fire he could see his breath in front of him. He pulled on a rather grubby hoodie, took a swig from a bottle of supermarket vodka, and went through the contacts on his phone. Big Mal had refused to extend his credit anymore, so there would be no more gear from that source in the foreseeable future. He had nothing to sell and about fifteen quid in his pocket. A couple of people in Horwich owed him a few quid, he would have to go into town and try and chase them up. He peered through the bedroom curtains into the darkened street. He hated Winter Hill. Everybody here was old, nosy and suspicious. He was only here because he couldn’t go back to Farnworth at the present time. His ex-girlfriend had a restraining order against him. True, he had given her a couple of slaps but she had asked for it. There was also the not so small problem of her two big brothers, both squaddies, who were going to break his legs. Oh and there were a couple of dealers he owed cash to as well, so for the foreseeable future his dad was paying the rent on this place. He took another swig from the bottle and decided to go for a piss before going out. He turned away from the window and found himself looking at a small blond girl in a yellow duffle coat who was watching him from the other side of the bedroom.
The Haunting of Winter Hill Page 5
