The Haunting of the Crowford Hoy (The Ghosts of Crowford Book 5)

by Amy Cross

  Chapter Six

  “You really do look like him, you know.”

  Turning, Matt saw that Nigel Winter had wandered over from the bar. Having followed the other strikers to the social club at the end of the day, Matt had intended to only have half a pint, but instead he'd found himself looking at all the old photos on the wall. Glancing back at one particular set of pictures, he saw his father's face grinning in a black and white image.

  “Fred Ford was a good man,” Nigel continued. “One of the best I ever knew. If he was here now, he'd be telling us exactly how to handle this strike.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Why wouldn't he?”

  “It's just that my mother...” Matt's voice trailed off for a moment. “Forget it. Sometimes I think she's losing her mind.”

  “Your father always said that men should stand for what they believe in. For what they think is right, you know? He said that if we all did that, the world would be a better place. He also said that all the other stuff would figure itself out in the end, but that you'd always be able to live with yourself if you knew that you'd done the right thing.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Matt replied, although he still couldn't shake a sliver of doubt. “I just can't help wondering what he'd be saying right now about everything that's going on in Crowford.”

  “Can't ask the dead for their opinions,” Nigel pointed out as he turned to go back over to the bar.

  “Wait, who's that?” Matt asked, spotting a familiar face in one of the other pictures. Stepping closer, he saw a black and white shot of his father standing next to the man he'd met earlier. He reached out and pointed at the man's face. “Do you know who that guy is, with Dad?”

  “That's old Ernest Dwyer,” Nigel told him. “He's something of a local historian, he takes a keen interest in anything to do with the past of Crowford. If you go in any of the bookshops in town, you'll usually find some of his work. Pubs, the mill, the mines, local incidents and disasters... you name it, Ernie's probably written a book about it. In fact, come to think of it, he's about the right age to have maybe served in the war with your old man. He doesn't get out much these days, though.” He glanced around, to make sure that he wasn't about to be overheard, and then he leaned closer. “Some folk say that he got into quite an argument with those Grace sisters, and you know what vindictive old cows they can be.”

  “Do you know where I can find him?” Matt asked.

  “Haven't got a clue, I'm afraid,” Nigel said, before taking a long sip of beer and then wiping his lips. “I heard he keeps himself to himself of late. He might live up the old mill end, but I'm not even sure about that. Shame, really. He used to be such a big part of the town.”

  Left alone in front of the photos, Matt couldn't help but think back to his encounter with Ernest Dwyer earlier near the colliery. He was certain that the man had simply vanished into thin air, even though he knew that wasn't possible. In which case, he was starting to think that he needed to track him down and try to figure out exactly what was happening out beyond the picket line.

  ***

  “Matthew?” Joan called out as soon as he opened the front door. “Is that you?”

  “It's me, Mum,” he replied, offering his customary greeting. He didn't know why she ever bothered asking; it wasn't as if anyone else ever entered the house.

  “Have you been at that club again?”

  “I popped in for a quick half, yes,” he said, bristling at the thought that he had to explain himself. “It's not as if -”

  “I don't know what's up with young men these days,” she said, interrupting him as she set a saucepan on the hob in the kitchen. “Drinking all the time, it's not good for you. I was talking to your father just this afternoon and he told me he's not happy with you, my boy. He wants you to get down to town first thing in the morning and start looking for a new job. He says there must be hundreds of cards in the exchange, all you've got to do is pick a few and make some phone calls.”

  “Dad wouldn't want me to leave the strike,” he replied, as he wandered through and saw that she was making beans on toast for supper. “You weren't talking to him this afternoon, Mum. This is all just stuff that's in your head.”

  “He thinks you're wasting your life away,” she continued. “You're twenty-eight years old and you should have a trade under your belt by now.”

  “I'm a miner.”

  “Mining's going to be a thing of the past soon. Haven't you listened to the radio lately? Give it five years, the pits round here won't be open anymore. You want to get a head-start and find a good job before all those other layabouts start flooding the market. Soon there'll be a few hundred young men looking for work and you need to make sure that you stand out from them. You don't want to end up taking the dregs and doing something like sweeping the streets.”

  “You don't know what you're talking about,” he said under his breath, before letting out a loud sigh. “Dad was eight when his parents moved the family down here from Yorkshire. They came because they wanted a better life, and because they heard a place like Crowford might be the future. That wasn't even that long ago. It's too soon for us to be giving up now.”

  “Your father doesn't think so.”

  “Dad's dead.”

  “He was in here with me all afternoon,” she added sniffily, “and he thinks -”

  “He's dead!” Matt shouted suddenly, shocking himself with the outburst. Even as his mother turned, horrified, to look at him, he realized that he could no longer contain his anger. “You're just telling me what you think,” he continued, “and trying to glorify it by pretending that Dad agrees with you, when the truth is he's been dead for almost ten years now and he's not coming back! And no matter what you might think, there's no way you can dredge him up and act like you know his opinion!”

  “How dare you speak to your own mother like that?” she replied, clearly shocked by his tone. “Young man, you might be nearly thirty years old but you're still my son and I won't be spoken to like that in my own home! You were raised better!”

  “I was raised to know the difference between what's real and what's just fantasy,” he told her, “and I won't let you pretend that Dad disapproves of me, because I know that's not true!”

  He waited for a response, but she merely took some bread and slipped the slices into the toaster.

  “Raising your voice to your own mother,” she muttered after a moment. “Whatever is the world coming to?”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but he already knew that there was no point arguing with her. Looking over at the dining table, he saw that his father's usual chair had been pulled out, almost as if his mother actually believed that he'd come back for a natter. A part of Matt desperately wanted to make her understand that she was deluded, but he also knew that she missed his father terribly, and he couldn't quite bring himself to shatter her beliefs.

  “How many slices do you want?” she asked as the first two pieces of toast popped up.

  “I'm going out,” he murmured, turning and heading back to the door.

  “What do you mean? Your supper's ready!”

  “I'll get something on the way,” he told her, desperate to escape from the house, at least for a few hours. “I'm sorry, I remembered something I have to do. Oh, and by the way, there's nothing wrong with sweeping the streets. If no-one did it, you'd soon be complaining.”

  Without giving her time to argue, he grabbed his jacket and headed back outside. He pulled the door shut and stopped for a moment, trying to work out where to go, and then he hurried off toward Cobham Street. He wanted to go somewhere he could be left alone, somewhere he wouldn't bump into anyone he knew, so he figured he'd try one of the pubs on the very far edge of town, maybe even out in one of the villlages beyond Crowford itself. And he told himself that by the time he got home later, he'd have made a final decision about whether or not to continue with the strike.

  Chapter Seven

  “Look, that's not what I
meant,” Barry said as he sat at the bar in the Crowford Hoy and tried to get his point across. “All I'm trying to say is that Robson's no step up from Greenwood. If we want to really make an impact at the next cup, we need to come up with something new, and I reckon it might be time to consider having a foreign manager.”

  As a murmur of disapproval rang out, Jane turned and looked over at Sally.

  “Is the conversation in here always this scintillating,” she asked, “or is it just my lucky night?”

  “You'd be surprised how much football knowledge I've picked up while I've been working here,” Sally told her. “Can you believe, I actually have an opinion about the qualifying format for the next set of games in Mexico?”

  “You're becoming one of them,” Jane said disapprovingly.

  “Listen,” Sally replied, stepping over to her while the football conversation raged nearby, “I've been thinking, maybe tonight isn't such a good idea after all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that it feels wrong somehow to start messing around with things we don't understand.”

  “Are you kidding?” Pulling the box out from her bag, she set it on the bar. “Call it a spirit board, or a marker board, or whatever, but do you have any idea how hard it was for me to get hold of this thing?”

  “Where did you find it, anyway?”

  “I had to go into Bradley's room.”

  “That's brave of you.” Sally turned the box around so she could see the front. “I don't know, it just gives me the heebie-jeebies to see the thing. What if we're messing with something we should leave alone?”

  “Are you scared?”

  “I'm nervous, I'll admit that.” She sighed. “All I'm saying is that it might be best to just accept that there's nothing here.”

  “And I'm telling you, that a pub this old is bound to have a few ghosts. We just need to give the atmosphere a bit of a stir, that's all, and wake them up.” She paused. “You want to contact Tommy, don't you?”

  She waited for an answer, but she could tell that Sally was uncertain.

  “You told me that's the whole reason you rushed him to Crowford when he was dying.”

  “It was, but now I'm not so sure,” Sally replied. “What if the right thing to do is just walk away? What if Tommy doesn't want to appear to me?”

  “Why wouldn't a young boy want to see his mother one last time?”

  “I just -”

  “What've you got there, love?” Ralph asked, leaning over and peering at the box. “What's a spirit board?”

  “None of your business,” Jane said, sliding the box out of sight and turning to grin at him. “Shouldn't you be talking about football or cricket or whatever else you guys use to fill your empty lives?”

  “No need to be like that,” he muttered, turning away from her. “I was just being friendly.”

  “We're doing this,” Jane told Sally firmly, holding the box up again. “It's natural for you to have doubts, and I totally get that, but you'll thank me later. Trust me, once this pub closes and we've got the place to ourselves, we're going to use this board and we're going to see if your son's ghost is here. That's what I'm here for, to keep you going in moments of doubt.” She reached over and put a hand on Sally's shoulder. “And because I'm your best friend.”

  ***

  “Goodnight, guys,” Sally said as Percy, Ralph and the others traipsed out of the pub a little after 11pm. “Take care on your way home. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.”

  She heard a few grumbled replies, and she smiled as she made her way around the bar and headed to the door. After pulling the blind down, she turned the key in the lock and checked to make sure the door was secure, and then she wandered over to the window and leaned down to check that the main outside light was off. Once she'd done that, she realized that she was delaying the inevitable, and she heard a faint bumping sound as she turned and saw that Jane was already setting the board out on one of the tables.

  “You know,” she said cautiously, “I can't even be sure that Jerry won't be back tonight. He usually stays out, but if he happens to come home early, he's really not going to be happy about what we're doing.”

  “So?”

  “So he's my boss, and he could sack me.”

  “Jerry's not capable of sacking anyone,” Jane suggested. “If he sacked you, he'd have to do some work himself. Now, get me a pint of whatever lager's coldest in this place, and then get your bum over here and onto a chair. We need to get started.”

  Sally opened her mouth to suggest once more that they should rethink their plans, but she knew that it was always impossible to argue with Jane. Although they'd only met a few months earlier, shortly after Sally's arrival in Crowford, she was already grateful for Jane's constant determination to push through and get things done. Even though the spirit board made her feel uneasy, therefore, Sally figured that she had little choice but to go along with the plan.

  “If you told me I'd do one of these things one day,” she said as she headed back around the bar, “I'd have thought you were nuts. I've seen them in films, but to be honest I wasn't even sure that they really existed.”

  “Oh, they exist,” Jane said, taking care to put all the pieces out in the right positions. “My gran had one when I was a kid. I was never allowed to play with it, of course. She always said it was for adults only.”

  “So do you know the rules?” Sally asked.

  “There aren't any.”

  “I'm pretty sure there are.”

  “In films, maybe,” Jane continued, “but come on, this is real life. You just use the marker thing to see if any ghosts want to deliver a message. If they do, great. If they don't, you do a few shots and have a laugh.” She paused as she watched Sally pouring a couple of pints. “I think this might really help you, though. Don't take this the wrong way, Sally, but sometimes I get the feeling that something's really weighing heavy on your mind. It's almost like you're holding something in.”

  “You mean when I get a kind of vacant look on my face?” She smiled. “That's just when I'm genuinely not thinking about anything.”

  “I'm serious,” Jane told her. “You use humor to mask it, but I know that deep down you've got serious issues. Doing this board tonight might help you face those, even if it doesn't mean that you directly make contact with Tommy. Which you totally will do, anyway.”

  “Maybe.”

  Jane watched her for a moment longer.

  “Don't you want to make contact with him?” she asked finally. “Despite everything you've said, are you having genuine second thoughts?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Because if you really hate the idea, I can pack it up. I suppose I'm just wondering why you'd be having all these doubts...”

  Sally glanced over and stared at the board for a moment, as if she was truly considering the possibility.

  “No,” she said after a few more seconds, “we should at least give it a try. I mean, you went to all this trouble already.”

  “Damn straight,” Jane told her. “To be honest, I don't think there's much else to do except dim the lights a little and get started.”

  “Shouldn't there be more of us,” Sally asked, carrying the drinks over.

  “How do you mean?”

  “In every film I've ever seen,” she continued, setting the drinks on the table, “there are at least three people around the board.”

  “Sure, but where are we gonna find a third person?” Jane asked. “It's late, and I'm not even sure where we'd find someone we trust. Come on, it might not be perfect, but at least we can give it a try. And I really don't see how any ghost would turn us down just because we're a person or two short.”

  “I just worry that it might not work if we don't do it properly,” Sally told her.

  “You're stalling,” Jane said firmly. “After all this time, tonight's the moment of truth, Sally. Are you going to be brave and really see if you can contact Tommy, or are you going to chicken out and
spend the rest of your life wondering?”

  Sally opened her mouth to reply, but then – staring down at the board – she realized that her friend might have a point. She hesitated for a moment longer, and then she took a seat.

  “Excellent,” Jane said, sitting opposite her and reaching out to touch the marker with one finger. “Let's get this show on the road.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I think that's a no,” Sally said an hour later, as she and Jane looked down at the marker that they were touching with one finger each. “Listen, this was a nice try, but -”

  “We're not giving up yet,” Jane said firmly. “This sort of thing just takes time.”

  “It's gone midnight,” Sally pointed out. “Aren't you tired?”

  “There's something here,” Jane said, looking around the empty bar area, “I can feel it. It's just that we need to draw it out a little more, that's all. Why don't you start by telling me a little more about Tommy?”

  Sally sighed.

  “You need to stick with it,” Jane added. “Listen, go and grab us each another beer and then we'll push on. If we haven't managed anything by one, maybe we'll call it a day, but I'm not quitting yet and neither are you!”

  “Whatever you say,” Sally replied, grabbing their empty glasses and heading to the bar. “I'm not doubting you, and I'm very grateful to you for making the effort with me, but I just feel that if anything was going to happen, it would have happened by now.”

  “This was never going to be easy,” Jane said, reaching down into her bag and tilting it open. She glanced at the tape recorder and saw that it was still running. “Hey, tell me about the night you and Tommy arrived here. I know this might be painful, but it also might stir some memories a little and encourage him to come out. What was it like on the night he died?”

  “I don't know that I want to go into that too much.”