A Spookies Compendium

by David Robinson

More seriously, Pete went on, “it’s always been a surprise to me that someone with your connections should have come so far down in the world.”

  “Inverted snobbery,” Sceptre said, “and you shouldn’t demean yourself so much. You’re not beneath me. The old class system is long dead and buried, Pete, and I’m grateful for that.”

  “But you must be disappointed. Brought up with grand ideas of a privileged future and it all comes to nothing.”

  Sceptre sipped at her tea. “You have fixed ideas. My father was not a drone, living off the efforts of others. He worked for a living. Yes, he was Viscount Rand-Epping, but he was also Colonel Sebastian Rand-Epping, North Yorkshire Light Infantry, and my mother was a teacher. You see? They did a proper job of work, just like you, just like Kev … almost just like Kevin.”

  Again she smiled.

  “There’s a reality about you two which is very appealing. Putting on the acceptable front is the downside of being a member of the aristocracy. You and Kevin are not like that. There are no pretensions with you.” Putting her beaker down, she held up her hands, palms up, and shrugged. “What I see is what I get. You also offered me a roof over my head at a reasonable price, with no strings attached. A council flat on the Cranley Estate may not be my ideal home, but it’s better than bed and breakfast, and way preferable to a cardboard box or hostel for the homeless.” She sighed. “We fell on hard times, Peter. Long before I was born. My grandfather was gambler and he blew most of the family fortune in the casinos. By the time my father became Sebastian Rand-Epping, Lord Marston, we owed a ridiculous amount of money to many people and institutions, and the only way we could get out of the debt, was to sell off the family home and lands. My parents and I ended up living in a modest house in York, and after my mother and father died, I had to sell the place in order to complete my education. I ended up in student digs with leering landlords hovering over me like characters from a 1960s dirty raincoat movie house.”

  Leaning on the table, Pete toyed with his beaker, turning it round in his hands. Sceptre noticed, not for the first time, just how large those hands were. Huge, burying the beaker, strong, the knuckles battered and uneven from too many fights, and yet she knew from the times when he had taken her hand to help her up, by the Christmas tree, for example, that they could also be gentle, soothing and (if Kevin’s apocryphal tales were to be believed) capable of driving women wild with passion.

  “One of them hit on you?” he asked.

  Sceptre threw her head back and laughed. “One? They all hit on me and most of them got the straight F.O.”

  A twinkle came to Pete’s eyes. “Only most of them? There’s hope for me yet, then.”

  Sceptre reached across and took his hand. His huge paw buried her tiny fingers. “There’s always hope, Pete. But hoping won’t get you what you want.”

  “All right, so I’ll ask direct. Sceptre do you fancy …”

  “Let’s stick to the subject, huh?” Sceptre withdrew her hand, sat back and collected her thoughts. “I said I’m grateful to you and Kevin, and I mean it, Pete. I was at a low ebb. I’d only just got into teaching, I had little money, nowhere proper to live and not much of a future.” Her voice sounded uneven, about to break. Sceptre knew that if it did, the tears of self-pity would flow.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologised. “I’ve reminded you of it all.”

  Leaning forward again, she took his hand once more. “It doesn’t matter.” She sniffed her tears back. “They’re personal demons and I need to exorcise them. Get out of feeling sorry for myself, and you guys help with that. You don’t sit around whining about how rotten the world has been to you.” She glanced sideways at Kevin, and then back at Pete. “Well, you don’t.”

  He chuckled. “Kev’s a good sort. Trust me. He’s a whinger and whiner, he spends his time filling up on smoke and drink and sweets, but he’s a genuine mate. He would never see you in the S-H-one-T. Friends like that are hard to find, so when you do find one, you stick by him.”

  For some time they sat there, Sceptre fighting down her emotions, Pete staring away from her, into a darkness dispelled only by the glow of their lantern.

  “So now you know,” she said. She drew a shaky breath. “All right, big boy. I’ve shown you mine, now it’s your turn.”

  He sighed. “I told you about the business with the whore who lied and how I thumped Chief Inspector Locke, and that’s why I was sacked.”

  “Yes, I know. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t take your arrest record into account. According to your girlfriend, DC Keynes, you were one of the best officers in the station.”

  “The old boy network,” Pete said with a grimace. “I ratted on a certain detective sergeant who was taking a dip from a known drug pusher. He got two years for his trouble, but he was related to some local politician in Manchester and they managed to wangle a suspended sentence for him.” Once again his face had dimmed, as if he was lost in the memories and they were making his blood boil. “I expected the disciplinary to suspend me without pay and order me back to training, downgrade me to the beat again but they fired me. Said I was a disgrace to the force, a disgrace to the memory of my father.”

  “Your father?” Sceptre was surprised.

  “I told you my dad was murdered?”

  She nodded. “Something about a bank robbery.”

  “That’s right. Well he was a cop, too. He tried to stop the thieves. Stood in front of their car. They just mowed him down. He never stood a chance. He got a posthumous George Cross.”

  “Oh, Pete, I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged it off. “Long time ago. Ten, twelve years now. It makes me mad when I think of it, but most of the time I’m cool.” His eyes bored into hers, willing her to understand. “They said I was a disgrace to his memory because I punched a senior officer, but the truth is I was selling out bent cops. Worse than that, bent cops related to the powers that be. My dad hated crooked cops as much as he hated crooked politicians. I was honouring his memory. Even Locke said so.”

  He fell gloomily silent, staring into the half-light.

  Sceptre held his hand. “One day, when we’re famous for ghost hunting, we’ll make sure we tell everyone the truth. About you and me.” She glanced at Kevin’s sleeping form. “What about him?”

  Pete chuckled. “He’s got no story. Fat, idle and born with the gift of the gab, what does he have to say to us. He’s a depressing symptom of what this country is coming to, but like I said, his heart’s in the right place.” He laughed. “Right next to his wallet. I’ll tell you something else, too. He has more bottle than he lets on.”

  “He does?”

  Pete nodded. “He cracks on he’s a scaredy-cat, but when the chips are down, he’ll fight. Especially when I’m on his side.”

  A glow burst into the darkness. The computer had come to life and beeped for attention.

  The sound woke Kevin. “Two gigahertz,” he said, then realised where he was. “Sorry. Must have been dreaming.”

  “Your mistress awaits.”

  “Mistress? Cheryl Sanford? She’s here?”

  “Who’s Cheryl Sanford?” asked Sceptre.

  “His on and off girlfriend,” said Pete, pointing Kevin to the computer.

  “Oh. Right.” Shaking his head to clear it, Kevin spun his chair round, his right hand falling automatically onto the mouse as he pored over the screen. “The crypt,” he said, dragging the camera view to the centre screen.

  The night-vision lens lending a ghostly tint to the pictures, was focussed on Emmet’s coffin where the coin, pocket watch and tankard sat.

  “Nothing’s changed,” he said.

  And then the camera jolted.

  *****

  Pete made for the door. “Stay put, both of you. I’ll deal with this.”

  “Pete, no. You don’t know what’s down there.” Sceptre felt as if she were begging in a way that Pete had waited months to see, albeit in different circumstances.

  “I know exactly
what’s down there,” he said, “and it’s more human than ghost.”

  “Let me talk to Fishwick first.”

  “Sceptre,” Pete maintained, “you can talk to the school governors for all I care. Wait here until I get back.” He strode out of the room.

  “Fishwick,” Sceptre called, “are you there?”

  “Right here, Milady.”

  “Fishwick, there’s something going on in the crypt. Do you know what it is?”

  “I think it may be the Reverend Emmet, Madam , playing his games again.”

  “Mr Brennan has gone down there.” Sceptre urged. “Can you keep an eye on him?”

  “And what of you, Madam?” Fishwick demanded. “Mr Brennan is a tough man and I more than fancy his chances against the Reverend Emmet.”

  Injecting some authority into her voice, Sceptre said, “Mr Keeley is here with me, Fishwick. I will be all right. Now please watch over Mr Brennan. If I need you, I will call.”

  “As you wish, Madam.” Fishwick’s clipped response left Sceptre in no doubt about his disapproval, but she knew he would obey.

  “Fishwick will take care of Pete,” she said to Kevin.

  “Great,” said Kevin without enthusiasm. “Who’ll take care of us?” He directed her gaze to the computer screen where a second alert was flashing, this time in the library.

  Sceptre took a deep breath. “We’d better get up there.”

  “Ah, no, Sceptre, Pete did ask us to stay here. Besides, my bum still hurts.”

  “Kevin,” Sceptre disapproved, “you should know that these things are so fleeting that we don’t have time to wait here.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, “but that one on the landing fleeted right at me. Sceptre, I’m out of my depth here. That business with the man in black has put the thrupenny bits up me. I can’t do it.”

  “Suit yourself. You stay here.” She marched for the door, paused and turned around. “Give my regards to the man in black.”

  He struggled to his feet. “On the other hand,” he said hurrying after her, “you may need me to look after you.”

  *****

  Making his way down into the crypt, Pete remained cautious. A career in the police had taught him that Sceptre was probably right when she said there was more to the universe than he could detect with his five senses. A career in the police had also taught him that most ghosts were human and invisible only because they were experienced at making themselves so.

  Something had been going on since they arrived at the school. For all her track record in practical ghost hunting and teaching, Sceptre came across as a sweet airhead at times, but she was no fool. If she said that library book was not on the table when they first arrived, the chances were that it was not. Having had time to think of how it could have been done by human rather than ethereal hands, he came to the conclusion that someone had unplugged or isolated the camera in some way, put the book on the table, then re-commissioned the camera and caused it to move in the correct direction by a simple wave of the hand close to the PIR, but above the lens’s range. And in the same way, the unseen adversaries (he was guessing that there were more than one) had made their way through the chapel, avoiding the PIR by keeping low, gone down the crypt and jolted the camera. He had not passed them in the corridor, a careful search of the chapel had revealed no one, so they must still be in the crypt.

  Reaching the bottom of the steps, he shone his light around. Nothing. No one. He moved from corner to corner, vault to vault, leaning over each casket, ensuring there was no space in which someone could hide, but still he drew a blank.

  Perhaps, then, there was a natural explanation for it.

  He shone his light on the tripod, slowly working his way down from the camera mount to the feet, checking all three legs. He aimed the light into the dust, and noticed that one of the feet had moved slightly.

  “Good enough for me,” he said to the coffins. “Someone has been down here.”

  He shone his light around the floor, examining the dust, but after Kevin and Sceptre’s earlier visit, their set up work and his own movements, there was a morass of footprints, all clearly visible but indistinguishable.

  So where the hell were the intruders?

  His light fell on one of the coffins. Could they? Would they? The thought of being alone in almost total darkness with nothing for company but several sets of old bones did not trouble him. Skeletons could do no harm except in Hollywood movies. If he were in a tight spot, desperate to hide, he would have no qualms about sharing a box with one.

  However, the slabs on these caskets were made of stone. Three inches thick, each one would weigh several hundredweight. One man could not possibly lift it, get inside and slide it back over, not even if he were as fit as Pete himself.

  A check of the slabs revealed dust that, with the exception of the Reverend Emmet’s coffin, they had not been disturbed in months, probably years. His unseen enemies were not in the coffins.

  Don’t assume. Deduce. Once again the instructions of his CID training officer came to him. Fat lot of use the advice was here. His assumption was logical: someone had been down in the crypt within the last few minutes. His deductions were farcical: on the evidence, no one had been anywhere near the place other than him and his partners.

  He headed for the stairs. As he reached them, the door above slammed shut.

  Assumption confirmed by deduction. There was someone here, but the clever buggers had been hiding somewhere between the dining hall and the chapel, and he had hurried past all the classrooms.

  He scurried up the stairs, grabbed the handle, turned and yanked. It refused to budge.

  “They’ve jammed something against it,” he said to himself, then promptly cursed. “You berk, Brennan. The bloody thing opens inwards.”

  Gripping the door handle, he turned it and heaved, without success.

  “Great. Bloody marvellous. I’m stuck in here and Kevin and Sceptre are easy meat.” He pulled out his mobile and switched it on, cursing Sceptre for her insistence that they keep them off. With luck, however, Kevin may have disobeyed.

  He dialled Kevin’s number and put the phone to his ear. Voicemail.

  “Crap!” He put the phone back in his pocket and sat down. Eventually, they would rumble that he was missing and come looking for him.

  *****

  “Well done, Madam,” Fishwick said to himself.

  When he realised that Mr Brennan was trapped in the crypt, he came out into the chapel and looked down on two spirits, both of which had arrived with the Reverend Emmet, both of whom now clung to the crypt door to keep it closed.

  Mr Brennan was a strong man, but he did not believe in the spirits, and therefore would not know of the extraordinary strength they possessed. He could tug at that door all night and he would never open it.

  It presented a problem for Fishwick, too. He was also possessed of enormous strength, but there were two of them. Even as he thought about it, one of them turned to look in his direction, as if challenging Fishwick to try.

  Hovering above them, Fishwick considered alternative approaches. Reason with them? Give them a severe ticking off?

  A red blur rushed in. “Vali!”

  The newcomer hurtled at the two spirits and struck them dead centre. They flew off at different tangents and one disappeared into The Light.

  “Billiards, eh” Fishwick muttered, as Vali flew off into the distance. “And it was a fine cannon.” He descended towards the crypt door. “I wonder if kicking them through the light is the Spirit Plane equivalent of murder?” He rattled the door to let Mr Brennan know that it was now free. “Hope not,” he continued muttering as he went off in search of Madam. “I’ve booted many a nuisance through The Light in my time.”

  Chapter Nine

  In the library, Sceptre and Kevin found everything disturbingly normal. “No books left on the table this time, Kevin.”

  Even as she said it, Sceptre wondered if he felt the same unease as she did. Pointless question.
Kevin had given voice to his unease downstairs.

  There came a faint noise at the very limit of hearing. Like the soft ruffle of paper. Here in an empty room where the windows were closed and where there should be no noise. She looked at Kevin. His face was rigid, worried, his eyes bulged, head turned from side to side, checking, seeking, wary. Had he heard it too?

  Sceptre scanned the shelves, her eyes moving across them too fast to focus, like the view of a movie camera whisking around a set.

  Tick!

  Not the sound of a clock but of something moving, something solid knocking on something else solid; wood on wood, metal on wood. Sceptre’s eyes darted sideways. She met Kevin’s worried face. He had heard it this time.

  Click! The sound of a light switch flicking off.

  The backlight dimmed. They both looked behind. Lights had gone out in the corridor. Sceptre motioned to Kevin to slowly back out of the room. He crept back, she echoed the movement, backtracking softly, slowly, silently. Her breath came fast, heavy. Blood rushed in her ears, she could hear the thrum of her heart.

  The gap between them was closing. Sceptre had already decided to go through the door first. Whatever haunted this room was now out in the corridor. She would confront it before Kevin.

  Kevin reached behind him, seeking the doorknob to open it wide. Their shoulders brushed.

  WHOOSH! SLAM!

  The door whistled shut, striking Kevin’s hand as it passed. They turned. Sceptre gripped the doorknob and pulled. It would not open. Something hit Kevin in the back. Sceptre looked down. A book. She bent to pick it up and another volume flew over her, crashing into the upper half of the door. The freshly replaced frosted glass rattled in its frame. Kevin turned again, facing the bookshelves. A volume of Britannica struck him in the chest. He fell back. Determined to avoid the half glass door, he twisted, fell against the tripod and knocked the camera to the floor.

  The lights began to flicker as if someone were rapidly working the switches. A hardbound atlas shot across the room. Other books followed in rapid succession: paperbacks, hardbacks, large books, small books. At the issuing counter, machinery began to rattle.