Sing me to Sleep
Page 36
“Here, Will, what’s this?” Martha suddenly interjected.
“What?” He was back at her side in a single step, as she leaned closer toward the screen, dragging the mouse across to take the footage back a few moments.
“Watch this,” she said, leaning back to allow him a closer look.
They stared as the camera automatically pulled back – it was a static night-vision camera, fixed on a tripod but with the facility to focus automatically if it sensed movement or needed to expand its view to allow a shift in light or mass to fit the frame. The shot was much the same as before – the grand piano, the fireplace, the mirror now clearly visible, reflecting the wall just above the camera, faintly lit with the glow of the infrared light from the piece of equipment. The movement was so fast that had they not been staring intently at the screen, they might never have seen it but, as they did, Will gasped, and grabbed the mouse in his right hand to watch it again.
It was definitely the shape of a person. It moved in a flash across the wall, as though walking quickly from left to right. What thrilled Will most was that, as the shot took in the mirror, they could quite clearly see that it wasn’t a shadow caused by a reflection. There was nothing to reflect.
Will watched it several times in a row, each time his face becoming more animated and the beginnings of a smile creeping across his features.
“Good?” asked Martha tentatively.
He turned to her and beamed. “You bloody genius!” he exclaimed and straightened, grabbing her in a bear hug.
It wasn’t comfortable – he squeezed too hard, and his jacket smelled musty, the wax slimy – but Martha allowed herself to be crushed in the embrace and smiled at his enthusiasm, closing her eyes for a moment.
“It’s clear that the shadow isn’t caused by a person – we’d be able to see anyone crossing the room in the mirror! How did I miss this before?” he said, breathless, releasing Martha and turning back to the screen to watch it again.
Martha glanced at the clock – eight fifteen. “You were looking too hard?” she offered, smiling. “C’mere, didn’t you say you’d meet the guys at half eight?”
“Hmm?” he asked, preoccupied.
“Only it’s a quarter past now,” she continued, “and you’ve got to get all the gear set up and it’s Hallowe’en and there’s a caretaker waiting at the house for you . . .” She allowed her voice to tail off as Will glanced at the time at the bottom of the computer screen.
“Oh Christ, you’re right,” he said, and hurriedly snapped the laptop shut.
He was going on an investigation he’d been excited about for weeks – a recently renovated former tenement house in Edinburgh’s Old Town. Will and his group from the university were to be the first to investigate it for signs of ghostly activity and they were hopeful of concrete evidence, based on the reports they’d received from the new owners and their workmen – a ghostly apparition of a priest coupled with odd noises and knockings in the dead of night.
Martha picked his keys up from the table and held them on her forefinger, clinking them gently from side to side to make it obvious, as he searched around the kitchen frantically for them, patting the many pockets on his jacket as he did so. Will smiled as he finally turned and saw them dangling there. He grabbed them with a grin, leaning in to kiss her softly as he did.
“You know I love you to absolute bits?” he said quietly so that Sue, waiting in the living room, wouldn’t hear.
“And so you should,” she grinned and kissed him back. “Now please be careful tonight, don’t bring anything back with you, and don’t trip over stuff. And drive safely.”
“I promise,” he said and pocketed the keys before tucking the laptop under his arm and leaning in for another kiss. “Seeya, Sue!” he called into the living room as he strode out of the kitchen, turning briefly to give Martha a warm smile of parting.
She followed him out to the hall to watch him head out into the dark evening, feeling the blast of cold air that gusted in through the front door before he closed it softly behind him.
“Is he bloody well gone?” called Sue from the couch.
Martha grinned before retreating to the kitchen to pick up the wine and glasses. “Finally!” she answered and flicked off the kitchen light before joining her friend in the cosy living room and closing the door behind her.
“My God, I thought he’d never leave!” said Sue, reaching out to grab some cashews from a dish on the coffee table. A fire crackled in the grate and the TV hummed low in the corner. “I set it to record so we didn’t miss a millisecond – the Hallowe’en special is going to be too bad to be true!”
Martha smiled as she settled herself in an armchair and began to pour the wine. She felt guilty at being so excited about what they were going to watch, but Sue was right – it was terrifically bad TV. If Will caught the two of them about to gorge on a two-hour special, he’d go into one of his sulks. “Right then,” she said, “Hit it!”
Sue jabbed her forefinger dramatically at the remote control on her knee and immediately green footage, much like that which Martha had been watching moments before on Will’s laptop, filled the screen.
A theremin played a 70s’ science-fiction-style theme tune, just audible under a deep voiceover which announced that the next two hours would most likely change the lives of those who watched, and prove without a shadow of a doubt that life after death existed.
Sue mouthed aloud along with the final few sentences which were part of the credits each week: “‘They’re young, they’re ready for anything, and they believe. We are ghosts . . . ghosts are them . . . Ghosts R Us!’”
The theme tune grew louder and the ‘cast’ of the newest ghost-hunting show on TV flashed up one by one on screen, all in their early twenties and equipped with various cameras, thermal imagers – the sort of equipment that Will used on his investigations – all captured in various states of what seemed to be terrible fear. And at the end, one last ‘character’: the resident psychic medium who accompanied the team every week. Gabriel McKenzie.
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