The Secret of Crickley Hall

by James Herbert

  ‘Uh-uh. I only have to visit the actual site now and again. Most of the problems are gonna be worked out on paper. S’why I brought my laptop and printer with me.’ The AutoCAD computer program was a boon to the engineering industry, solving problems that used to take hours, if not weeks, in seconds. ‘Most of my work time’s gonna be spent at the company’s local office in Ilfracombe.’ Ilfracombe, some ten or twelve miles away, was the nearest big town to Hollow Bay. ‘And then a lot of work I can do back at the house, so you’ll probably be seeing much more of me than usual.’

  ‘But you brought your laptop too, Mum,’ Loren said, turning to Eve. ‘Why do you need yours?’

  ‘Oh, just to keep hooked up to a few magazines back in London. You know I still do occasional freelance work.’

  ‘But you haven’t for a long, long time.’

  ‘No, and it’s time I got back to doing something useful.’ God, Eve thought to herself, as if writing trivia for women’s magazines was anything useful. At least if some assignments did come up they would keep her mind occupied for a while. She desperately needed distraction and she intended to call some of the mags she’d written for in the past. Perhaps an article on moving to the countryside, or making friends in a completely new environment. Perhaps something on how it feels to lose a beloved child. No, not that – she could never do that.

  Cally, who was barely tall enough to see over the harbour wall, tugged at Gabe’s hand, impatient to move on. ‘Can we go now?’ she pleaded. ‘Chester will be lonely on his own.’

  Feeling wicked, they had locked the whimpering dog in Crickley Hall’s kitchen: it would have been even more heartless to leave Chester tied up by his lead in the rain while they had lunch. Besides, they had spoiled him last night when Gabe had brought him up to their bedroom and allowed him to lie at the end of the bed (Gabe had felt Chester continue to shiver in his sleep before he, himself, had dropped off). Leaving the dog alone today might just cure his nervousness. Of course, equally, it might just make him worse. With an inward sigh, Gabe turned away from the sea and led his family back up Hollow Bay’s main but narrow thoroughfare.

  Towards the end of the street and almost opposite an iron and concrete bridge that crossed the swift-flowing river, they came upon a shop whose broad sign above two large plate-glass windows proclaimed it T. Longmarsh, General Store/Newsagent, and Eve, her arm linked through Gabe’s, brought them to a halt.

  ‘I need to get something for tonight’s dinner,’ she told Gabe. ‘And for tomorrow’s lunch.’

  Gabe peered through the window. ‘Okay, let’s see what they got. S’all freezer-packs by the look of it.’

  Cally had taken time to stand in the kerbside gutter and stamp her Wellington boots into the stream of water that rushed towards a storm drain further along. Loren jumped away to avoid being splashed.

  ‘Hey, Cally, quit it,’ Gabe warned. ‘You can look at the books in the store while we shop.’

  ‘Bummer,’ Cally complained as she stepped back onto the kerb and Gabe had to hide his grin as Eve frowned at her.

  Loren giggled, but knew better than to encourage her sister’s take on Bart Simpson, so turned away as if honestly interested in the window display. Eve mounted the step into the store’s porched entrance and the wood-framed glass display cabinet next to the door caught her eye. Inside it were cards of various sizes and colours, each bearing handwritten or typed messages advertising second-hand goods or services for purchase or hire. She glanced over them with casual interest. There were plumbers, gardeners and garden tools for hire, a pram, used cars and kittens for sale. There were ads for a veterinary service, estate agents and local dentist on view, and more items for sale such as an ‘almost new’ Apple computer and a Singer sewing machine, cottages to rent, and a church jumble sale announced for a date long since passed. There were faded cards for a psychic reading, an undertaker, speckled pullets, a lime distributor and a reconditioned tractor.

  ‘We going in, hon?’ Gabe prompted from the rain-soaked pavement.

  Eve had been lost for a moment – such moments were becoming more and more frequent lately – taking in the cards without registering any in particular. A bell tinkled above the door when she pushed through.

  The shop was crowded with small freezer units and shelves loaded with confectionery and tinned food, alongside stationery, the smaller kind of DIY products – glues, picture hooks, nails, saws and hammers – with stand-alone magazine and book racks taking up much of the floor space. Jars of sweets, miniature displays of mints and chewing gums, and local and national newspapers shared space with a cash machine on the counter, behind which a plump woman of middle years and severe countenance had become alert to her new customers.

  Eve, Gabe, Loren and Cally piled in, dripping wet, a fresh breeze blowing in with them, carrying rain through the porch and over the threshold. Gabe hastily closed the door behind them to preserve the warmth inside.

  ‘Pretty nasty out there,’ he said half apologetically to the woman behind the counter, who merely stared back at them through horn-rimmed glasses. ‘Yep,’ he answered himself under his breath, ‘it’s pretty wild.’

  Eve nudged him with an elbow and he feigned interest in a bookrack close by. Eve immediately went to one of the two freezer units, smiling hello to the shopkeeper as she passed by her. Shrugging off her hood, Cally trotted over to the shelves of sweets and chocolate bars, while Loren went to the magazine carousel.

  Gabe, standing by his own book carousel, glanced around the store and wondered at the cornucopia of goods on offer. Bags of dog food leaned against one wall, the shelves above filled with lemonade, Coke and Fanta bottles; affixed to card displays on the walls were combs, hairgrips, packs of women’s tights, hairbrushes and cheap digital watches. More shelves were stacked with soap powders and detergents, dusters and mops, firelighters and sunglasses, loaves and bread rolls. The place seemed to cater for all needs and, judging by the abundance of stock, did a brisk trade, although at that particular moment there were only three other customers: a stockily built old lady wearing a pink see-through ankle-length mac, who was ambling over to the counter clutching a ready-sliced loaf in one arm and a pack of PG Tips in the other, while behind the magazine carousel where Loren was studying teen magazine titles there lurked a girl of about Loren’s age and height but stocky, and a taller, older boy. They were taking peeks round the carousel at Loren, ducking back whenever she looked their way.

  Shy kids, Gabe thought, browsing himself. One of the titles before him caught his eye. The Great Hollow Bay Flood the title said and, curious, he picked out the front copy. It was a slim, soft-covered edition and he flicked through the first few pages. It seemed the harbour village had suffered a devastating flood during the Second World War, when buildings had been destroyed and many lives lost. He became more interested and thumbed through to the pages of black-and-white photographs that showed the village in the flood’s aftermath. The images were grim: houses totally demolished, vehicles turned over onto their backs in the main street, workmen clearing rubble, giant boulders in the streets, broken walls, debris of wrecked homes and buildings littering the mud of the foreshore along with overturned fishing boats. Later photographs depicted excavators and cranes clearing the wreckage, military vehicles bringing in troops (as there was a war on at the time, Gabe assumed that these were drawn from the reserves), diggers bearing loads of rubble and wood, and fresh scaffolding being erected. It must have been one hell of a night, he thought.

  Loren was aware of the two customers on the other side of the carousel – she’d glimpsed a hefty-looking girl, probably around her own age, but who dressed a lot older, and a taller boy with stick-up hair and a harsh case of acne – and tried to ignore them, even when she felt the magazine rack held firmly from the other side as she tried to turn it. Forced to move round the rack instead of spinning it, she soon came within proper sight of the two and she gave them a hesitant smile of greeting. She had half pulled a Shout from its rack between Co
smogirl and Pop Star when the big-built girl spun the carousel and the bottom corner of the magazine was caught and pulled from Loren’s grasp. It fell to the floor, its contents of special offers and other junk literature spilling out.

  Loren flushed and immediately went down on her haunches to retrieve the magazine and its colourful detritus, growing even redder when she heard the other girl say, ‘Geek.’ Sniggers followed.

  Feeling embarrassed, humiliated even, such was her sensitivity, Loren gathered up the gaudy adverts for teenage skincare cream, panty liners and hair gel, and stuffed them back inside the magazine.

  Just then, Cally came trotting round a floor shelf clutching a tube of Smarties in one hand (she guessed her mother would refuse to let her have them so, even at that tender age aware that daddies were much easier to manipulate, she was bringing them to Gabe). She came to a stop when she saw the big girl and boy glaring at Loren and heard them call her a silly name. Cally poked her tongue out at them.

  ‘Spazzie,’ the big girl called her.

  ‘Bite my shorts,’ Cally replied.

  Loren put a hand to her mouth to suppress a giggle. She took her sister’s hand and led her away. ‘It’s not bite my shorts, Cally,’ she whispered, leaning close to Cally’s ear. ‘Bart always says eat my shorts.’

  Gabe had witnessed the minor encounter from behind the bookrack, reluctant to interfere: Loren had to learn to stand up for herself. Sure, if the situation had got serious, if the girl and boy had tried physically to bully his daughter, then he would have stepped in, but instead Cally’s response had made him wince, then grin. They really had to wean their youngest daughter off The Simpsons.

  ‘What are you two up to back there?’ came a stern voice from the other side of the shop. It was the shopkeeper, whose broad upper body was angled over the counter as she stood on tiptoe to see round the magazine racks. ‘Is that you acting the maggot, Seraphina Blaney? Come on out and bring yer daft brother Quentin with yer. Yer’ve spent too long already moochin’ around. Are yer buyin’ or not?’

  Reluctantly, the girl sidled out from behind the magazines, the boy, who must have been about fourteen, slouching after her, and Loren got a good look at them both as they deliberately brushed by her.

  ‘Saddo,’ the girl slyly said to Loren as she passed; the acne-cursed youth sneered a grin.

  ‘Come on now, what yer got there to buy?’ It sounded like to boiy. The shopkeeper had evidently lost patience with them, for she added: ‘It’s taken yer half the day to choose.’

  The sturdy-looking girl offered up a can of Diet Coke while the spotty boy grasped a Twix in his fist. Seraphina wore her hair scraped back over her scalp in sink-estate style, a rubber band holding it together at the back of her neck so that it hung down in a lank ponytail. There was a hardness to her features despite the pudginess of her flesh: her eyes were mean and narrow anyway, but were made even meaner and narrower by the surrounding plumpness, and even the shortness of her nose failed to soften her looks, for the lips below were thin, almost a gash in her face.

  It would have been hard to tell they were brother and sister, for the boy had large doleful eyes and, although stocky, he was tall as well, with slouched shoulders and a concave chest that made him appear slightly paunchy. His tufty hair was slick with gel and his mouth hung gormlessly half open. His face and neck were tortured by angry-looking pimples and pustules, but such was his bearing – he somehow walked with an arrogant but hunched swagger – it was almost impossible to feel any sympathy.

  Both had on brightly coloured anoraks – hers blue, his red – and both wore heavy boots. The girl looked back at Loren, spite in those narrow eyes, as she collected her change.

  ‘Found a mag you want, honey?’ Gabe said to distract his daughter, who had brought Cally over to him.

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, Dad. I was only looking.’

  Although Cally had saved the day and made her giggle, Loren was still skittish, still intimidated, and he wanted to enfold her in his arms. He realized they all – all except Cally, who was a tough little tiger and too young to mourn the loss of her brother after all this time – had the tendency to over-emote given the slightest provocation these days, although they had different ways of expressing it. Loren would verge on the hysterical at times (or was over-reaction the norm for a girl of her age?), whereas Eve gave in to things too easily, almost as if detached from them. And Gabe, himself? Well, he was aware his old aloofness had returned, that he kept his emotions on a tight rein, allowing no one in, afraid of letting go. He was conscious of his own lack of overt emotion, didn’t like it in himself, but he was afraid of lowering his defences once more. He tried, oh how he tried, but instead feigned a superficial cheerfulness. Not just for the sake of his family and friends, but for himself also. Inside, he was hurting badly.

  ‘Choose a couple anyway,’ he said to Loren, indicating the magazine rack.

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ She picked out the magazine she had dropped only a few moments ago.

  The bell over the door tinkled as the hefty girl and her brother left the shop.

  ‘These’ll do for tonight and tomorrow’s lunch, Gabe.’ Eve was holding several packs in her arms: tagliatelles, shepherd’s pies, steak and mushroom pies and a vegetable mix.

  ‘They’ll do for about a week,’ he commented, taking some of the packs from her.

  ‘Hardly. Not with you three gannets. I’ll do a proper shop on Monday. There’s bound to be a Tesco or, with luck, a Waitrose in one of the local towns.’ She had lowered her voice, presumably so as not to offend the shopkeeper who was watching them attentively.

  ‘Bring your magazines, Loren,’ Gabe said over his shoulder as he followed Eve over to the cash till. ‘Sparky, where you got to?’

  Cally’s squeaky voice came from behind a display of kitchen utensils. ‘Coming, Daddy.’ She appeared clutching a jumbo bag of Maltesers in her hands as well as the original Smarties.

  Grinning, Gabe shook his head. ‘That’s too much. Ask your mother.’

  ‘No, Cally, just one thing, just the Smarties, okay?’ Eve told her.

  ‘But, Mummy . . .’

  ‘No buts,’ Gabe said firmly. ‘Put the big pack back.’

  Having extorted at least one prize, Cally scooted back to the confectionery shelves.

  While the shopkeeper was totting up the bill on the cash register, Gabe returned to the rack and picked out the book he had glanced through before. He also took an Ordnance Survey map of the Hollow Bay area.

  ‘Some flood,’ he said as he laid the book on the counter and pointed at the black-and-white photograph of the devastated village on the cover.

  The shopkeeper’s severe expression had considerably softened now that the evidently troublesome brother and sister had departed and her new customers had made a decent purchase. ‘It happened in the night,’ she responded as she put the packs in plastic bags marked with the store’s name. ‘Sixty-eight people crushed or drowned. Don’t think Hollow Bay’s ever got over it even after all these years.’

  You got that right, Gabe thought to himself. There was definitely something brooding about the harbour village, a kind of heaviness in the very air. Then again, maybe it was only due to the constant rain: it’d make anywhere seem miserable. He nodded his head sympathetically at the woman. She took them all in, studying each member of his family individually through horn-rimmed glasses as she continued to pack by instinct alone.

  ‘Yer stayin’ local like, are you?’ she asked Eve after payment had been made.

  ‘Crickley Hall,’ Eve said back and Gabe noticed the shopkeeper’s eyes harden for a fraction of a second. ‘My husband has business in these parts for a month or two,’ Eve continued by way of explanation.

  ‘Yes, I heard it were bein’ rented out again. S’been a long time since.’ The woman folded her arms and suddenly looked formidable. But once again, she softened when she looked over the counter at Cally and Loren. ‘Just you look after the little ones,’ she said to E
ve and Gabe both.

  Eve glanced round at Gabe and he raised and dropped his eyebrows at her.

  10: THE GRAVES

  The rain had thinned and turned into a steady drizzle as they made their way up the hill towards Crickley Hall. There were only a few houses on either side of the great gorge, and all looked solid, thick-walled, but none as austere, nor as big, as Crickley Hall. Gabe carried two plastic bags of groceries, while Eve and Loren held one bag each.

  ‘I’m beginning to have doubts about this place,’ Eve said to Gabe, a little out of breath with the climb.

  ‘You mean the village or the Hall?’

  ‘Both.’ She looked at him from beneath her hood. ‘Hollow Bay is, I don’t know – depressing somehow. And it shouldn’t be. It’s a picturesque village even if jaded by time and wear, but there’s something . . .’ She was lost for the correct word. Then: ‘I don’t know . . . mournful about it.’

  Keeping his voice low so that the girls, who were several yards ahead, wouldn’t hear, Gabe said, ‘I felt it too. Nothing you can hit on, but the place is kinda depressing.’ He gave a short, forced laugh. ‘Maybe it’s just the weather getting us down. And well, you know . . .’

  He didn’t have to say the words for her to understand. Perhaps it was because they were still grieving that everything seemed so joyless to them. It was a new place, yet it had none of the excitement of a new place, nor of a new beginning. Perhaps if they knew for certain that Cam truly was dead, and not just missing, things would at least have some kind of closure.

  Eve pushed the worst of those thoughts away and faced her husband. ‘I don’t think I can stay here too long, Gabe.’ Her voice was cold rather than plaintive.

  He came to a halt too and leaned into her, finding her eyes beneath the hood. He spoke softly.

  ‘Hey, it’s only for a coupla months, probably a lot less if things run smoothly. It’ll pass in no time.’

  Even in the shadow of the hood he could see the misery in those deep brown eyes of hers.