by Paul Mason
‘But we are a museum, Mrs Crank,’ pleaded Parkin.
‘No, Mr Parkin, we are not,’ snapped Mrs Crank. ‘We are a hotel spa.’ She nodded at the room. ‘And this room here will be perfect for the Garra rufa fish.’
‘The what?’ asked Parky, knowing he didn’t really want to hear the answer.
One of the assistants spoke up. ‘Tanks of little fish. You put your feet in and they nibble them clean, it’s the latest thing.’3 She rolled her eyes at him. These country types don’t know anything, she thought to herself.
‘But the Duke of Wellington was our country’s greatest military leader. When he died and his coffin was lying in this very room, almost ten thousand people came to pay their respects, they thought so much of him. We can’t have it full of verruca fish, it wouldn’t be right.’
Mrs Crank and her assistants wrinkled their noses simultaneously.
‘You mean there was once a dead body in here?’ said Mrs Crank. ‘How awful. Just as well we’re giving the place a total facelift.’
‘I’ve just had an idea, Mrs Crank,’ interrupted one of the assistants cheerfully. ‘I see a slogan: “Feel like you’ve been on the march all day? Give foot ache the boot – the Wellington boot!” We could have his boots stuck on the wall.’
‘Perfect,’ said Mrs Crank. The assistants wrote it down.
Parkin felt sick. This couldn’t be happening. The ghost himself was trembling with anger.
Mrs Crank turned and led the way up the stairs.
‘Now, I want to have a look at the Lord Warden’s apartments, or should I say, the Honeymoon Suite.’
In the apartments upstairs, the ghost burst through the wall. ‘Hide!’ he hissed at Stella and Tom. ‘Quick, under the bed. Intruders!’
The twins scampered under the bed as quickly and quietly as they could. The Duke climbed through the wardrobe door.
A moment later Mrs Crank and her entourage clattered into the room. Stella and Tom watched the pairs of shoes nervously.
‘Ah, this is more like it,’ Mrs Crank said. She gave a wide sweep with her arms, then hurriedly checked to see that she hadn’t upset her hairdo. ‘Very grand. Very elegant.’
Parkin breathed a sigh of relief.
‘This room can stay as it is, except for the curtains, the carpet, the furniture – and we’ll have to knock down that wall there, won’t we, Mr Pitt?’
‘Yes, if we want to fit in the “his and hers” seaweed baths.’
Inside the wardrobe the Duke was reeling. So was Parkin.
‘And surely this honeymoon suite will need one of them sauna things, and a place for a sunbed,’ he said sarcastically.
‘Don’t be so silly, Mr Parkin,’ snorted Mrs Crank. ‘Those things will be going into the dungeon along with the gymnasium and the Ayurvedic treatment tables. We’re going to call it the “Lower Mezzanine Pamper Suite”.’
Parky sank onto the bed. The springs pushed down on Stella and Tom. They held their breath. ‘The Lower Mezzanine Pamper Suite,’ he repeated in a whisper. ‘What’s next?’
‘I told you before, Mr Parkin,’ tutted Mrs Crank, ‘you’ll hardly believe it’s the same castle when we’re through.’
‘I’m just glad the Duke isn’t around to see this,’ said Parkin. ‘It would break his heart.’
‘Come, come, Mr Parkin, you’re being overly sentimental. What’s past is past. We must focus on the future. I’m sure Wellington would agree.’
But of course the Duke of Wellington didn’t agree. In fact, he was as far from agreeable as a ghost could possibly be. That night his shape practically crackled with annoyance. His eyes burned with fury. The twins had never seen him this way before.
‘So, what’s past is past, eh? Well, I’ll show her. The past is very much alive!’
‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Tom.
The Duke grinned mischievously. ‘Well, I think a little bit of haunting to start with. I’ve been waiting a long time to act like the sorts of ghosts you read about in stories. You can’t build a health club and turn this place upside down if the staff are too scared to work.’
‘What can we do to help?’ asked Stella.
‘Just sit back and enjoy the show.’ And the Duke winked.
Chapter Eight
Ghost hunter
The next day in her office, Mrs Crank was working hard at her desk. She glanced down at her watch. It was already lunchtime and she had only managed to approve half the architect’s plans. It had been a busy morning, and her head ached something rotten.
She got out the little mirror and eye-liner from her handbag. Better have a spruce-up, she thought to herself.
Just as the eye-liner reached her face, out of the middle of her desk rose a silvery, human head. Right in front of her, as real as real could be, was the ghostly head of an old man, his sunken eyes closed, his cheeks sucked in, his skin transparent. Mrs Crank stopped still, the blood draining from her face.
The ghost slowly opened his dark eyes. ‘Good morning,’ he groaned at her through his teeth. Mrs Crank trembled. ‘Tell me, have I come to the right place for a pampering?’ the ghost moaned. Then he puffed out his cheeks and blew a gust of air through her hair.
The beehive toppled from her head. Mrs Crank shrieked at the top of her lungs, and jagged the eyeliner pencil across her face as her hands shook. She screamed, and waved her arms, and then screamed some more. Then she froze solid, her face went blank, and she crumpled into a heap on the desk.
Flump! Mrs Crank was out cold.
The Duke gave a little chuckle and sank back down into the furniture as the assistants came bursting into the room. Rather good, he thought to himself, for a first go.
After that the Duke quickly developed a real taste for spooking, and he threw himself into it wholeheartedly. He took to blending in with his marble bust, or holding the pose in one of his many portraits, and camouflaged like this, he’d lie in wait. He’d lurk till one of Crank’s assistants or the architect, or the builder and his mate were walking the castle on their own, peacefully minding their own business. Then suddenly he’d turn his head and shout out something most bizarre at the top of his lungs, like ‘Hogwash!’ or ‘Snickersnee!’ The effect was horrifying.
Within the first few days of action, the Duke had caused two faintings. Not only were Crank’s staff completely jittery, they sounded like utter fools saying that they had seen the ghost of the Duke of Wellington (‘Yes, it was the Duke of Wellington!’) and that the only thing he had said was ‘Hogwash!’
Soon, everyone’s nerves were on edge. Mrs Crank herself stayed away for two days, regaining her strength.
Then the twins joined the fight.
First, they went for Pitt the architect’s measuring tools and plans. The twins didn’t take them away – that would be stealing. They simply moved them from their usual place and left them somewhere else, just out of sight. This had the double effect of getting Pitt to waste time looking for his things, getting angrier by the minute, while also making him think he was losing his memory. Peeking out, the twins laughed to see him emptying his briefcase for the umpteenth time, hands on head. Pitt blamed the ghost.
Tom followed this up by applying the very nasty ‘slugs-in-a-boot’ tactic to the builders’ boots, which they left on site. There is nothing quite as horrible as having a slug pop and squelch under your sock. It quite ruins your morning, as Jezzard and the builder’s mate soon found out. They disliked this job already, and they hadn’t even hammered a single nail. They too blamed the ghost.
Next, Stella took some cling film from the kitchen and spread a sheet of it tightly over some of the staff toilet bowls so that you couldn’t even tell it was there. An invisible barrier. When the two assistants went to use the bathrooms on their break... well, you can just imagine. The two of them took a day off the next day. They blamed the ghost.
So between the Duke’s haunting, and the children’s pranks, little progress was made on turning the castle into a health retreat. Th
e works ground to a halt. The Duke was as pleased as punch. Parky couldn’t help but have a chuckle at Mrs Crank’s expense. It hadn’t escaped his attention that he and his team of castle keepers, as well as all the visitors, were being spared the ghostly treatment, and he thought he understood the reason why.
But you don’t get to be someone like Mrs Crank by being weak-minded and giving up at the first sign of trouble. Back she came with vigour and determination. Monsieur Raphael had worked his magic with her hairdo, and it sat upon her head like the Rock of Gibraltar.
Mrs Crank was of the opinion that for every problem there was a solution. She hadn’t believed in ghosts before, but if there was a ghost in the castle, so be it. There were ways of dealing with ghosts.
She gathered her team out in the castle gardens. They were a little puzzled as to why they were having a meeting out there, especially given that it was raining, but hiding underneath her umbrella, Mrs Crank explained.
‘I’ve worked it out. That sneaky ghost has been eavesdropping on our plans. But I don’t think he can hear us out here.’ The others nodded. ‘We must take him by surprise and then we can get on with our building work.’
‘And how do you propose to do that?’ asked Parkin. ‘The Duke has probably been here for over a hundred and fifty years.’
‘By calling in a ghost hunter, of course,’ said Mrs Crank. ‘One arrives next week. He comes highly recommended.’ She grinned a terrible grin. ‘His name is Seymour Stonyheart, and he’s never failed to catch his prey yet.’
Chapter Nine
‘Up, Guards, and at ’em!’
It was evening, and the Duke and twins were playing indoor croquet. It would be more correct to say that Stella and Tom were playing croquet and the Duke was umpiring, as he couldn’t hold a mallet. But, being a stickler for rules, he quite enjoyed the job. The twins had borrowed the mallets from the garden and were using rolled-up socks for balls. The legs of the tables and chairs were the hoops.
Tom was lining up a shot. It was a long one: from one end of the main drawing room, all the way under one of the chairs in the dining room. Get it and the game was his. Tom had to be careful that he didn’t hit the sock ball too hard, or it might launch itself onto the dining table which was always set with glasses, cutlery and china.
‘Come on, Tom,’ said Stella. ‘You’re taking ages.’
‘I have to agree,’ said the Duke. ‘I might have to mark you down for a penalty stroke.’
‘You two just don’t want me to win, but watch this!’ Tom clattered the sock ball along the carpet. It bounced off the chair leg, and went into the fireplace.
‘I win!’ said Stella.
‘Not fair,’ grumbled Tom. ‘You made me rush my shot.’
‘Any longer on your shot and we would have been old and grey,’ said the Duke. He looked down at his hands and body. ‘Oops, too late,’ he laughed, and the twins giggled at him.
The Duke caught sight of the clock. ‘Goodness me, it’s getting on. Put the things back as they were and straight upstairs.’ The twins did as they were told.
They turned off all the lights and trooped upstairs, together with the Duke, who gave off enough of a glow for them to see where they were going.
They reached the door to the apartments, but strangely, there was bright light coming from underneath the door.
‘I thought I told you to turn the lights off upstairs when we came down,’ said the Duke.
‘I did,’ said Stella.
Looking at each other nervously, the twins pushed open the door – and froze. Inside, leaning back comfortably in one of the armchairs, was Parkin.
‘What sort of time do you call this to be going to bed?’ he said with a grin.
There was no escape. The game was well and truly up. So, hanging their heads a little (the Duke included), the three of them came in and plonked themselves on the bed, a feeling of dread washing over them.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not here to turf you out of the castle,’ Parkin said, seeing the look on their faces. ‘I’m here because I need your help.’
‘But we thought you wanted us out,’ said Tom.
Parkin nodded. ‘I admit I did at first, but then I could see you weren’t doing the castle any harm – if anything, things were a bit better round here, to be fair. Like that grandfather clock.’
‘I knew fixing that clock would make you suspicious,’ muttered the Duke.
Parkin turned to him. ‘I’m here because I know you won’t see this place turned into a hotel, and neither will I. But we’ve got a major problem on our hands.’
Parkin told them all about Stonyheart.
The twins’ faces dropped. ‘How on earth are we going to deal with both Mrs Crank and the ghost hunter?’ asked Stella.
‘By meeting them head-on in the field of battle,’ snorted the Duke. ‘I defeated Bonaparte, and now I’ll defeat Stonyheart – it’s as simple as that.’
‘I don’t think it will be all that straightforward,’ said Parky. ‘Apparently he’s never lost yet. But if we put our heads together and work as a team, perhaps we can come up with a plan.’
The Duke thought for a moment then nodded. ‘You’re right, Mr Parkin, we are all in this together. Shall we unite forces and take on Crank and her allies?’
‘Indeed we shall,’ said Parky. ‘Up, Guards, and at ’em!’
‘Couldn’t have put it better myself,’ the Duke chuckled.
Even the twins managed a smile.
Seymour Stonyheart drove up the castle drive, the tyres of his van crunching the gravel. On the side of the van in cold, hard lettering was: ‘Nuisance Control Services,’ and underneath: ‘Guaranteed’. The van was otherwise plain, with blacked-out windows. On its roof there were aerials and satellite dishes of all sizes. This van looked like it meant business.
Stonyheart slid the van to a stop near the main drawbridge and climbed down. He was a small man, wiry and thin, with a face shaped like a clothes iron. He wore a black overcoat over a black suit, a black trilby hat over his black hair. His shoes were black, his socks were black. He looked completely gloomy, and that was because he was. There was no joy in this man, none whatsoever. The only thing he enjoyed was his job, and his job was capturing ghosts.
There are, broadly speaking, two types of people who deal with ghosts. One sort wear loose-fitting exotic clothing and have wonderful names like Madame Baboushka, or Augustus Mephisto Jr. They sometimes have crystal balls, or speak in funny voices, or ask the ghosts questions and then write down the answers in scribbly writing (ghosts always seem to have bad handwriting).
Then there are the others: the scientific ones who use expensive machines and computers. They set up infra-red cameras and wear headphones attached to special microphones. They have hand-held radars, and when they find a ghost, they trap them in tiny, electric force-field boxes and take them away. A decent ghost hunter will then release the ghost in the woods so he or she can carry on haunting in the wild – and most ghosts actually like a change of scene.
But though Seymour Stonyheart was scientific, he was certainly not one of the decent kind. He didn’t see ghosts as having anything human about them at all. He never tried to find out why a ghost was haunting, or what could be done to allow the spirit to rest: he believed them to be nothing more than a foul pest that needed stamping out.
Stonyheart liked to keep the ghosts prisoners – trapped forever. He had a shelf of tiny force-field boxes in his van with the poor ghosts squashed inside, rather like trophies – the same way that ignorant, awful people once used to have tiger heads on walls.
Yes, thought Stonyheart, looking up at the stone walls of the castle. Time to go trophy-hunting.
Chapter Ten
Like a snake
Up in her office, Mrs Crank greeted Stonyheart with enthusiasm. The two of them eyed each other up, each sensing immediately that they were rather similar. Cold, business-like, no-nonsense. Mrs Crank thought Stonyheart looked rather dashing dressed all in black.
Stonyheart was quite taken by the tremendous pile of hair on top of Crank’s head. But they weren’t here for pleasantries – that could come later. First they had a ghost to deal with.
‘Now, tell me everything you know about this ghost, and where I might find it,’ Stonyheart said, perching himself on one of the office chairs.
‘He began appearing only recently,’ began Mrs Crank.
‘He?’ Stonyheart asked.
‘The Duke of Wellington.’
‘Mrs Crank.’ Stonyheart curled his lips into a thin smile. ‘The Duke of Wellington has been dead since 1852. The apparition that is fouling these walls is nothing more than a messy collection of electro-magnetic energy. It is no more the Duke of Wellington than I am. Please refer to it as “it”.’
‘It certainly looks like him,’ Mrs Crank argued weakly.
Stonyheart ignored her. ‘When did the apparition first appear?’
‘Once we had started work on redeveloping the castle.’
‘Re-developing?’
‘Yes, as a spa hotel.’
Stonyheart nodded approvingly. ‘Much better than this stuffy castle. Good money to be had in that racket.’
‘Precisely. But we haven’t got very far at all. He – er – it has been interfering with the architect and the builder, and upsetting us all.’
‘Where was it seen last?’
‘I believe in the Wellington Museum room. It popped out of one of Wellington’s boots and made my assistant come out in a rash.’
Stonyheart got to his feet. ‘I shall fetch my tools, then I want you to show me.’
The museum room had been closed off to visitors. A notice on the door simply said ‘Closed for Cleaning.’
Parkin had been summoned to open the glass case which housed the Duke’s things – his medals, his uniforms, some letters. He stood at the back of the room with Mrs Crank, shaking his head.
