Creature Comforts

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘Yes, I just told Cam about that, but Rufus may not want to take on a dog.’

  ‘She’d make him such a wonderful companion,’ she said. ‘I’m sure he’s a dog person, so he needs her.’

  ‘Do you think she’s even house-trained?’ I asked doubtfully.

  ‘Since it’s likely she’s been kept caged in a barn with a lot of other dogs, possibly not,’ Debo admitted.

  ‘That would certainly give Myra plenty to clean up, then – she’d go into bleach overload.’

  Cameron said he’d better get back to Spring Cottage and I told him I’d see him in the pub that evening.

  The years had concertinaed together so that I was slipping almost seamlessly back into the old ways: early morning dips in the pool, walks with the dogs and then, most evenings, meeting up with Cam and Lulu at the Screaming Skull.

  ‘I told Rufus we’d be down there tonight and he’d be welcome to join us,’ Cam added, as he turned to go.

  So it seemed the old routines were changing, after all, just as my old dream had jumped from its usual track and was now running free.

  When I set off for the pub, Babybelle was safely back in her kennel – and I hoped she’d stay there, though an occasional anguished howl followed me as I walked down the shadowy path to the Lady Spring.

  Rufus and Cam were sitting on a block of lichened stone, waiting for me – I could hear them talking quietly, even before I saw them.

  There was no sign of Dan in the public bar when we got there, which was a good thing – unless, of course, he was off in London again with Fliss. I expect Rufus was thinking the same thing.

  The pub was busy, so Lulu could only get away to join us for half an hour, just in time to hear Cam and Rufus discussing when they would make the long trip down to Cornwall.

  ‘When I bought the easels and donkeys, the seller said he had a lot of other odds and ends I might be interested in, if I’m starting up art classes,’ Cam said. ‘I’ll see when we get down there.’

  ‘If we’re stopping at my contact’s place too, we’d better take the bigger van,’ Rufus said.

  Lulu suggested that in that case it might be a good idea for Cam to try driving it a bit, before they set out.

  Walking home, I thought suddenly how odd it was that in the space of only a couple of days, Rufus had gone from a total stranger to someone we were all comfortable with, as if he’d always been part of our group.

  After we left Cam at Spring Cottage, it was good to have someone to walk with me the last bit of the path home – right to my door, in fact, though this time Rufus wouldn’t come in.

  ‘I have a few email queries to answer tonight. I’m hoping to shift that huge semicircular stone seat to an old customer – and I’m officially opening the antiques centre tomorrow, don’t forget.’

  ‘True. You need your sleep; it’s probably going to be a busy day.’

  ‘I hope so … and why are we whispering?’ he asked.

  ‘So we don’t wake Babybelle. She seems to have bat ears,’ I explained. ‘You’re not going to walk up the drive, are you?’ I added. ‘Why don’t you cut round the path again?’

  ‘I’m really not worried that I’ll come face to face with Howling Hetty, but I can see I’ll have to exorcise her from my drive at some point, to make you happy,’ he said in some amusement.

  I thought that even if he did, I’d still be reluctant to walk past that spot at night, haunted for me as it was by more than just Hetty’s ghost.

  Chapter 18: Lucky Charm

  ‘Me?’ I gasped, astonished. ‘You want me to drive you back to Sweetwell? But – I can’t drive! I’m not even old enough to drive.’

  ‘Of course you can drive! You were fine when I showed you how,’ Harry said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sit next to you and tell you what to do.’

  He gave me that smile again, though this time fear lessened the impact.

  It was a grey morning and I bottled the swim, deciding to go out for the early dog walk with Debo and Judy instead and visit the pool later.

  First, though, I rang Daisy and told her how my dream seemed to be no longer recurring, but moving on.

  ‘And I’m convinced they’re really memories, because before, the scenes I dreamed about were like something seen underwater, but now they’re floating up to the surface, so they’re perfectly clear.’

  ‘Very poetic,’ she said. ‘It’s certainly possible that that should happen while you’re relaxed in sleep. It will be interesting to see how far they progress.’

  ‘However far it is, I still want to talk to the two main witnesses to the accident, Simon and Cara. I’ve spoken to all the others now, though it didn’t add much to what I already knew, except that Simon tried to see me when I was in hospital and they wouldn’t let him in.’

  ‘Have Debo and Judy told you I’m coming to lunch in a few days?’ Daisy asked. ‘I’m speaking at a conference in Liverpool and calling in on my way back.’

  ‘No! They must have forgotten to mention it.’

  ‘We’ll talk then,’ she promised.

  Babybelle was delighted that I was taking her for her morning walk and, since she seemed to have struck up an unlikely alliance with Pearl, I had charge of both dogs.

  I didn’t put Belle on the lead and she stayed right behind me, nose to leg, as before. Then, as we came out by the house and were about to take the path that would lead us home by a different route, Rufus suddenly appeared round the side of the building, heading for the stable yard.

  Ginger and Vic were romping freely all over his roughly hewn lawn, but Debo, unabashed, waved and called out gaily, ‘Hi, Rufus!’

  Babybelle and Pearl spotted him at the same moment and Belle instantly bounded off. I wasn’t sure what she was going to do with him when she got there – bowl him over? Attack him? But I didn’t have time to ponder further because, to my surprise, the lead in my hand gave a galvanic jerk as Pearl set off after her friend. She was a big dog, so I didn’t have much option but to follow.

  By the time we got there, Belle was greeting Rufus like a long-lost friend, but Pearl timidly abased herself at his feet, unsure of her welcome until he made a big fuss of her.

  ‘You might as well admit defeat and rehome her,’ I told him with a grin. ‘It’s obvious she adores you.’

  ‘She’s lovely, but I’ve never had a dog and—’ he began.

  ‘Oh, you’ll be fine,’ Judy assured him, as she and Debo, trailing dogs, caught up with us. ‘She’ll have to be spayed, because another litter could kill her, but as soon as she’s over that, she can come to you.’

  ‘But don’t worry if you really don’t want her, since I’m sure Tom will,’ Debo put in.

  ‘I’ll have her,’ he said suddenly, seeming to surprise himself.

  ‘Great!’ Debo enthused. ‘And if there are any problems with her settling in, I’ll give you the number of Chris, my dog whisperer, and he’ll come and sort her out.’

  ‘Right …’ Rufus said, then added uneasily, ‘What kind of problems?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure there’s nothing major,’ she assured him airily.

  His brow wrinkled. ‘You know, now I come to think of it, I’m sure I saw Tom out with a dog yesterday …’

  ‘Come on, you two – time to get home for breakfast,’ Judy said quickly.

  ‘Good luck for today. I hope you get lots of customers,’ I said to Rufus. ‘I might pop in later and see.’

  And then we beat a hasty retreat, though Pearl had to be dragged away from her idol and kept stopping to look wistfully back.

  Lulu drove up later so we could go and see the garden antiques centre together, though she wouldn’t be able to stay long.

  ‘My Haunted Weekenders and some of the other visitors have left, but we’re still quite full because of it being a bank holiday.’

  ‘Soon you’ll have Haunted visitors for whole weeks at a time, not just weekends,’ I said.

  ‘We often do have visitors for a week anyway. I expect the Haunted
Holidaymakers will take themselves off every day to do the trail, or visit the other local attractions, so all I’ll need to do is lay on the storytelling evenings and hand out the leaflets and maps.’

  I hadn’t intended taking Babybelle to the garden antiques centre, but since she’d flattened the netting of her pen and come in search of me, there was no choice. She refused to be diverted even by the rattle of her food ball, so we put her in the back of Lulu’s small car. She entirely covered the rear seat and there would probably be a blanket of hair left when she got out, but Lulu said she didn’t mind.

  The centre seemed to have got off to a good start, for I’d noticed quite a lot of cars going up and down the drive already and there were several customers about when we got there.

  Rufus was helping to load a lion-head wall fountain into the back of a big four-wheel-drive vehicle, while Foxy was cleaning the rust off an ancient wheelbarrow, while keeping one stern eye on the punters. She waved her wire brush at us.

  I had Belle on her lead and resisted her attempts to drag me over to greet Rufus again. Luckily she didn’t persist, but followed us as we had a good rummage about. Lulu bought a half-cask that had once held whisky but now had holes drilled in the bottom to turn it into a planter.

  ‘Mum will love it and it’ll look great by the kitchen door, full of flowers,’ she said, and Rufus promised to drop it off later in the day.

  ‘How’s it going?’ I asked him.

  ‘Surprisingly busy. I thought it would take longer for word to spread that I was here.’

  ‘Come down to the pub again tonight with me, Izzy and Cam, and we’ll celebrate your opening,’ Lulu suggested. ‘It’ll be quieter than yesterday so I’ll be able to join you.’

  ‘If you’re sure you don’t mind?’ he said diffidently. ‘I know the three of you are old friends and you probably still have a lot to catch up on.’

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ she told him. ‘Izzy said on the way here that she felt like she’d known you for ever.’

  ‘Did you?’ he asked me.

  ‘We all do,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s the Salcombe in you.’

  He bent to stroke Babybelle’s head and she grinned and lolled her huge tongue amiably at him.

  It seemed to remind him of our earlier meeting, for he said uneasily, ‘That dog …’

  ‘Pearl? Missing you already,’ I said brightly.

  ‘I mentioned her to Myra and she asked if she was house-trained.’

  ‘Possibly not, but it will give Myra’s cleaning a real challenge, won’t it?’

  ‘I think it’s going to give me one, too,’ he said gloomily, and then Foxy called him over to talk to a customer.

  Lulu had to go then anyway, but since Rufus and Foxy were so busy, I offered to make them some coffee in the little office and, while I was about it, one for myself. There was a plastic box of fruit fairy cakes on the desk, which was probably Myra’s contribution to the new enterprise.

  When it was ready, I loaded the mugs and cake box onto a battered tin tray and left Belle snoozing under Rufus’s desk while I took it out to where Foxy was working on the wheelbarrow.

  I laid the tray down on a nearby stone bench and Rufus came and absently helped himself to a fairy cake, before wandering off, mug in hand, to talk to an elderly couple who seemed lost in reminiscence as they examined the antique watering can collection.

  ‘Rufus knows his stuff, his interest’s genuine and he’s full of knowledge,’ Foxy said, then added unexpectedly, as she stared after his broad-shouldered, slim-hipped rear view, ‘He’s a bit of all right, too – but I’m not his type.’

  She took a slurp from her mug and demolished a fairy cake in two bites.

  I wasn’t sure exactly who would find Foxy their type, though I’m a great believer in there being someone for everyone, and I said so.

  ‘One of the gardeners over at Grimside has his eye on me,’ she admitted.

  ‘Really? It’s not Simon Clew, is it?’

  ‘No! He’s having it away with Cara Ferris-as-was. Everyone knows that!’

  ‘I didn’t!’ I said, amazed.

  ‘Well, you do now. And I reckon Rufus has his eye on you, because as soon as he could get away from his customers, he was across the yard to talk to you, faster than a fox after a chicken.’

  I blushed. ‘I’m sure you’re wrong, Foxy. He thinks I look like some kind of pixie.’

  ‘Well, so you do – and they’re supposed to be lucky!’ she said, and then guffawed, before going off to browbeat a browser into buying something he probably had had no intention of purchasing.

  I felt a little shy after that, even though I was sure I wasn’t Rufus’s type, either. But I did think we might become good friends in time … so long as his mother wasn’t around. I sneaked off home while he was still preoccupied.

  Rufus was very quiet and abstracted on the walk down to the pub that evening.

  The first thing he said to Lulu when we got to the Screaming Skull was, ‘Dan wasn’t here yesterday and I don’t suppose there’s been any sign of him today, either, has there?’

  ‘No,’ she agreed, ‘not since Saturday night. But he hasn’t been in as much as usual at weekends recently, anyway.’

  ‘Then I think my suspicions are right,’ he said sombrely. ‘Izzy told me that he’d been boasting about spending weekends with my mother, and when Fliss rang me earlier, I heard a voice in the background and was sure it was him.’

  ‘What did she want?’ I asked.

  ‘To warn me not to be taken in by your aunt Debo again, she said. And she thinks I ought to give her notice to quit the Lodge.’

  ‘But you can’t do that,’ Lulu said. ‘It’s Debo’s for life, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I told her. Then she said she and Dan had got friendly – her words – and he’d told her I was coming down on him heavily, so I was to lay off.’

  ‘She’s put you in a difficult position, hasn’t she?’ Cam said sympathetically.

  ‘She specialises in doing that. But I told her straight that if I was paying someone to work for me, I expected them to earn their wages, so whether he stayed or not was up to him. That’s when I thought I heard his voice in the background.’

  ‘Tricky,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, trust Fliss to add a complication to any situation,’ he said. ‘I told her I could hear him in the background and I knew he was there with her, and she said what he did in his free time was his own business, and then she put the phone down.’

  ‘It is going to make things awkward, isn’t it?’ Lulu asked.

  ‘Yes, but luckily none of her men friends lasts long, so I should think she’ll get tired of him any minute now,’ he said. The thought seemed to cheer him up a bit, so we went into the public bar and played darts.

  Cam suggested, while we were playing, that Rufus should join the Halfhidden Regeneration Committee and come to the Hut meeting the following night, which would be a good way to get involved in village life, and he said he would.

  When Rufus and I left, Cam said he’d stay for a bit so he and Lulu could have a look at what was to go on the hotel website about the Haunted Holidays.

  ‘Are your friends … more than friends?’ Rufus asked tentatively as we started up the path, the two pale moons of our torch beams overlapping ahead of us.

  ‘I think it’s heading that way,’ I admitted, then explained about Cam rescuing Lulu from her horrible ex, and how it seemed to have brought them closer on the way back to the UK.

  ‘Then I think Lulu got cold feet, imagining Cam was just being kind and comforting, and also that it would ruin our friendship. But actually, I really do think they’ve fallen in love and eventually they’ll admit it to each other.’

  Some startled creature went crashing away in the undergrowth and I said suddenly, ‘Sometimes lately I feel I’m being watched when I’m in the woods. I never used to have that feeling.’

  ‘Do you think you’re being watched?’

  ‘Not really and
there’s never anyone there, so I’m sure I’m imagining it. But maybe Howling Hetty’s expanding her territory, or … other ghosts.’

  I shivered and he took my hand in his warm, strong grasp, just as he had the first time we’d walked up from the pub together.

  Chapter 19: Ghosting

  ‘Simon’s incapable of driving – who’d have thought a drop of vodka would make him legless?’ Harry said disgustedly. ‘And if I get done for drink-driving again, I can kiss goodbye to that sports car Dad’s buying me.’

  ‘But if the police are waiting round the corner I’ll be arrested, and Judy and Debo will be furious!’ I said, my voice trembling.

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t be arrested. They’d just let you off with a caution,’ he assured me.

  I woke at dawn to a silent house. It was too early even for Debo and Judy to be up and about, but I was way too unsettled to sleep again.

  I got up, collected my swimsuit and towel and then tiptoed downstairs. In the kitchen, Vic and Ginger opened their eyes and each gave me an incredulous look.

  As I slipped out into the still, chilly morning air, I nearly changed my mind, but then crept on past the kennels. There was the sound of some stertorous doggy breathing, which I suspected came mostly from Babybelle. During that night she’d spent in the Lodge kitchen, the walls had practically vibrated with her snoring.

  There was no sign of life yet in Spring Cottage and I started to get the feeling that all the rest of humankind might have vanished in the night. I think I’ve watched too many bad horror films.

  But then, as I pushed through the old turnstile, I nearly had a heart attack – for a spectral white shape glimmered in the dark entrance to the cave above the pool, amid a few lingering swirls of early morning mist.

  ‘Oh my God!’ I gasped, stopping dead – almost literally.

  The spectral shape waved. ‘Hi, Izzy!’ it called.

  ‘Is that you, Lulu? You nearly gave me a heart attack!’

  Once I was nearer, I could see she was attired in a white Victorian nightdress with long sleeves and a pie-crust frill around the neck, made out of about two acres of diaphanous cotton lawn. Her face was covered in stage make-up, whiter than any geisha’s.