The Secret of Crickley Hall

by James Herbert

  He was no fool; but then, she already knew that. ‘Go with me on this, Gabe,’ she pleaded and said no more.

  With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair. ‘Okay, you win,’ he said reluctantly, not quite sure now why he wanted to leave Crickley Hall. Viewing more properties, packing, then unpacking again – he sure as hell didn’t need it. But the compromise was fair. Sure, the house was uncomfortable – although it was almost cosy sitting here in front of a roaring fire, even if the heat did not extend too far beyond the hearth. Maybe they did need more time to settle in. Maybe Chester just hadn’t liked the strangeness of the house – he was too used to their home in London. Maybe there were odd noises, puddles on the floor, doors that would not stay locked, but there was probably a logical reason for all those things. Wasn’t there?

  Anyway, what could happen to them here? It was just a cranky old house that, now it had new occupants, was creaking back to life.

  He smiled at his wife, who looked even more beautiful in the warm glow of the firelight, a colour back in her cheeks and lively little flames reflected in her eyes.

  ‘Okay, Eve,’ he said. ‘We’ll give it another try.’

  After all, what could happen to them here? A house was just a house.

  It was as if Crickley Hall had paused to take a breath.

  There were no incidents that night, no rappings, no sounds of running feet, no ‘whimpering’ from closed closets. Nothing untoward occurred during that night and the Caleigh family slept peacefully. Even Eve rested, although her mind was filled with ethereal images of spinning tops and dancing children.

  Loren and Cally fretted over their missing pet for a short while, but sleepy tiredness soon overcame them both. Gabe was out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  The wind that rushed through Devil’s Cleave to the bay below died away and the rain became a light patter.

  All was still and silent in Crickley Hall, save for the creaking of the cellar door as it opened a few inches.

  27: TUESDAY

  Not for the first time Gabe strode across the hall to close the open cellar door. He examined the lock first, though, turning its long key backwards and forwards, having only to use slight pressure to move the locking bolt in and out. There appeared to be no reason for the door to keep unlocking itself and straying open a few inches, enough for a breeze to rise up from the cellar below and escape into the hall. The breeze, he realized, must come from the well down there, rushing waters creating strong draughts of air. But strong enough to push a locked door open? It seemed unlikely, but it also seemed to be the case.

  Opening the door even wider, he peered into the inky gloom. The dismal daylight from the hall itself did not travel far into the stairway: it was as if the blackness was pushing back the light, rather than the other way round. Without a candle or flashlight, he ruminated, a person would be swallowed up by it. As if for reassurance, Gabe reached in and flipped down the light switch. The light that came on at the bottom of the stairs was barely fit for the job, for its dusty glow had only a limited effect on the darkness. The smell that wafted up was dank and unpleasant and the low, muffled roar of the underground river was somehow disturbing, as if it were boasting its threat, bragging its danger.

  Gabe closed the door and the river’s sound diminished, could only be heard if he really listened. He twisted the key again so that the door was locked, and he wondered how long it would remain so. Eve had suggested that he fix a bolt to it, high enough to be out of Cally’s reach, and he resolved to visit a hardware store when he was next in town.

  It was early, just after 6 a.m., and Eve and the girls were still in bed waiting for their alarms to go off. Gabe was wide awake, though, and full of repressed vigour after a decent night’s sleep, finally. Despite the chill, he wore only a pale grey sweatshirt with the arms cut off at the elbows, slim black joggers and his usual sturdy ankle boots. Back at home in London, he managed at least twenty minutes pounding the pavement every weekday before work and he felt he needed to get back to a similar routine. The air should be better and the scenery was certainly much more pleasant.

  Still puzzled by the wayward cellar door, he went to the hall’s front door, which did have bolts top and bottom, although so far they had relied only on its key lock. This was deep countryside where houses were not meant to be vulnerable to late-night intruders – or so the theory went, he told himself, as he unlocked the door. Maybe no home was safe from burglars any more, country, town or city.

  He swung the door wide and fresh air seemed to throw itself at him, immediately cleansing his nostrils of the cellar’s lingering odour. The sun had not quite risen above the gorge wall and the trees and shrubbery across the river appeared black and a little forbidding; in the city even the darkest of mornings were lit by street lamps and early-opening shops. Nevertheless, the day would quickly grow brighter as he ran and at least there would not be hazardous junctions to cross, traffic to dodge. He’d keep a lookout for Chester and call his name while he ran: maybe the mongrel hadn’t travelled too far and was only keeping clear of the house itself. He would ring the local police station later that morning to report their missing pet, but that was in Merrybridge and they were hardly likely to send out a task force to look for Chester.

  Gabe drew in great lungfuls of air, priming himself for the run, and when he bent low to stretch his spine, he saw something lying on the doorstep. He frowned, then knelt beside it. Only one of its wings was splayed, the other lying half beneath the bird’s body and, although the light was poor, Gabe saw no wounds or any other reason for its demise. It looked like a wood pigeon to him, and when he picked it up, the head hung loose and the released wing fell open. He examined it further and still could find no gashes or death-causing breaks. It seemed the bird had died of old age rather than anything else. It had probably crashed to the ground mid-flight during the night and had just happened to land on their doorstep.

  Gabe was glad he had found it first before Loren or Cally set eyes on it: they would have been distressed. He stood and with his free hand he closed the front door behind him. He trotted past the swing hanging from the old oak and stopped by the bridge. Rather than throw the dead pigeon, he leaned over the rushing waters, one hand hanging onto a rail and, as gently as possible, dropped the feathery corpse into the swollen river where it was swiftly washed away by the current.

  Pulvington was easy to find on the map and Eve made the journey in less than twenty minutes. Mostly the roads were good, although several times she had to slow the Range Rover to walking pace in order to squeeze past oncoming traffic. Gabe working at home today gave her the perfect opportunity to use their car. It was a shopping expedition, she had told him, the chance to find a supermarket and a decent range of shops. Pulvington appeared to be one of the larger local towns.

  Although he would be working in the room off the L-shaped first-floor landing, which he had turned into a make-shift office, he’d be able to keep an eye on Cally, whose bedroom/playroom was only a few doors away on the other arm of the landing. It wouldn’t be a hassle for Gabe, because Cally was good at playing on her own, her lively imagination creating all kinds of scenarios for her and her dollies, or the little plastic play people she was so fond of, to act out. Gabe would be within easy hearing distance of her and Cally knew she could go along to his ‘office’ whenever she liked or wanted something; even though he would be working on the complex operation of the marine turbine, Eve knew that Gabe would be only too glad of interruptions as long as there were not too many, and Cally had promised she would disturb Daddy only when it was absolutely necessary. Eve had used the excuse that she could get a big shop done in half the time without Cally in tow and Gabe had readily agreed to have their daughter with him for a couple of hours, despite his work load. ‘Not a problem,’ he had told Eve.

  Eve parked the Range Rover in the town’s small busy carpark and then walked round to the high street, looking for the address on the card she held in her hand. It was a cold au
tumnal day, but at least it wasn’t raining yet.

  Eve had thought of ringing ahead, but Crickley Hall oddly only had that one telephone, despite the size of the house, and it was in the hall, which was not at all private. She hadn’t wanted Gabe to overhear her. Also, the phone was not the ideal medium for telling a complete stranger the story of her missing son and how she thought the house she was presently living in was haunted.

  No, the only course of action was to go to the psychic reader’s address and speak to her directly. Telephones were too impersonal for a story such as hers. Of course, it might be that the psychic, this Lili Peel, had moved on – Eve knew that the faded card she clutched in her left hand was two years old, but she was prepared to take the chance. At the least, it provided an opportunity for some required shopping (as she walked she noticed there was a supermarket, albeit a smallish one, along the high street).

  She noted the numbers on houses and shops that she passed, once or twice almost bumping into other pedestrians because her attention was mainly on door numbers, which on her side of the road were even. 96, 98, 100 went by, and soon she found what she was looking for. Number 116 High Street, Pulvington, came as a surprise.

  It was a tiny crafts shop squeezed between a florist’s and a dry cleaner’s. The narrow half-glassed door was painted apple green, as was the frame around the window next to it, and the sign stretched above both simply declared in elegant, white script: Craftworks. Displayed in the show window were pots and vases of various sizes painted in either bright or soothing colours. There were also little figurines and statues on display with glass animals and clay dishes, along with pendants and metal earrings, brooches and bracelets, all carefully set out yet nonetheless crammed together. The hanging sign on the glass part of the door said OPEN.

  With a short in take of breath, Eve went in.

  Gabe sat perched on a stool at his drawing board and easel, chewing on the end of an HB pencil. He was none too happy. He didn’t know why, but finding the dead bird on the doorstep that morning had spoilt his day. It was unfortunate that it had fallen at Crickley Hall’s door.

  There had been no sign of Chester when Gabe was on his run. He’d called the dog’s name every hundred yards or so, but there’d been no response. The mongrel had well and truly got himself lost. The whole family, but especially Loren and Cally, was upset and, although Chester was only a dog, his disappearance so close to the date of Cam’s disappearance nearly a year ago was particularly distressing. The engineer resolved to search a wider area once Eve was back with the car. He had reported the missing pet to the local police but, as expected, they didn’t seem very interested.

  Before him on a sheet of A4 paper was his rudimentary sketch of the improved machinery that would raise and lower Seapower’s marine turbine rotor and drive chain, a much simpler arrangement than they had at the moment, so there was less to go wrong. He’d also suggested a mechanical device that would relieve the system of much of the strain when lifting machinery from the water in strong tides. He would ink in a more detailed specification, sign it, and have a copy sent to APCU’s head office for checking by his principal engineer.

  Gabe quickly checked out some measurement figures on his laptop, which sat on a small wooden side table that he had brought in from another room. It was at right angles to the board and easel and held items such as set squares, pens, pencils and paper, as well as a couple of engineering manuals. He was pleased with his morning’s work, but would go over every detail two or three times to make sure the operation was viable before submitting it. It was only when he was jotting down numbers in a half-filled notebook that he heard the muted sound coming from along the landing.

  He smiled to himself. Its source was Cally, playing in her bedroom. She was singing or talking to herself, a common enough trait of kids around her age. He strained to hear what she was saying or singing, but her voice was no more than a muffled drone.

  Gabe suddenly had the urge to see her, a response that was not unusual for him, or for any other father of a five-year-old. Resting his pencil on the edge of the drawing board’s movable plastic ruler, he slipped from his stool and went to the door of the makeshift office. He listened again and Cally’s voice was a little louder.

  She was both singing and holding a conversation, probably with one of her dolls, or Jumper, the pink teddy bear. Once in a while he and Eve eavesdropped on Cally’s dialogue with her ‘friends’ and it always filled them with wonder at their daughter’s conviction that she truly was conversing with a real person. She would say something in her little girl way, then become silent as if listening to a reply, and then she would respond to that. It made Gabe and Eve chuckle on occasions until they had to creep away, hands over mouths, lest they be heard. Not that it would have made much difference to Cally: she believed what she believed.

  Evidently, his daughter was having a fine old time with her imaginary playmates, for giggles interspersed the chatter and songs. Gabe moved out onto the landing and leaned over the balustrade, trying to peer into her room from that angle. He couldn’t see her through the open doorway, but her voice was clearer. Where many young children might answer themselves by assuming another voice, Cally never did. Replies were always inside her head.

  Intrigued as always, Gabe pulled back from the balcony and tiptoed along the carpetless landing, quietly taking the turn, slowing his pace as he drew nearer to her bedroom because he didn’t want to interrupt her.

  When he was within a step of the doorway, a floorboard creaked beneath his foot and it was loud enough to announce his presence.

  Cally stopped talking.

  Discovered, Gabe stepped into the doorway, a smile on his face, a greeting on his lips.

  His jaw stayed open but no sound came out. He blinked in surprise. And in that blink, the tiny bright lights that hovered around his daughter vanished.

  As was to be expected, the inside of the crafts shop was narrow, but the ceiling was high and two switched-off paper-ball pendant lights hung low from it. A lamp on the small desk at the far end of the shop was on, though, and its glow brightened the blonde hair of the woman whose head was bowed as she worked on something sparkly on her desk.

  Like the display window, shelves and solo stands in the long room were crowded with things to buy. Original paintings adorned the walls, most of them watercolours and all of landscapes or fishing boats; some were excellent, others merely adequate. Sheer but colourful scarves were draped round the necks of white headless busts on the shelves, while more clay and stone figurines along with bric-a-brac and glass vases filled the spaces around them. There were two hat trees, both with straw hats and straw baskets hanging from them. On the solo display stands were pendants, bracelets and brooches, most made of plain or coloured metals; there were rings and more bracelets of coral and seashells, as well as copper and pewter emblems fashioned into signs of the zodiac.

  Without even pretending to be interested in the goods on show, Eve walked the length of the shop to where the blonde woman was absorbed in her intricate labour. Eve saw that she was working on a crystal necklace, passing thin black thread through minute silver links pressed into the tops of the stones, all of which were of soft, various-coloured hues. The lamplight glinted off the crystals.

  The blonde woman raised her head as Eve approached. She was strikingly pretty, Eve thought at once, her yellow hair shortish but flicked out at the sides, her fringe tethered by a thin leather thong she wore as a headband. Even sitting, she appeared petite, almost fragile, her shoulders narrow, her neck long and finely curved. Her face was pale, her nose small but nicely defined, and her lips were a delicate pink. But it was her eyes that struck Eve most of all, for they were of the palest green flecked with brown, with full dark eyelashes framing them. As interesting as those eyes were, they stared up at Eve impassively, as if deliberately guarded.

  Her voice was soft but direct when she spoke. ‘Can I help you?’

  Eve could not help but feel it was not a sincere o
ffer. She held out the small card she still had in her hand. ‘I’m looking for this person,’ she said. ‘Ms Lili Peel.’

  Those lovely but somehow brittle green eyes went to the card. ‘That’s old.’ She looked up at Eve again. ‘It’s out of date.’

  ‘I know,’ Eve replied. ‘It’s been in a shop window for the past two years.’

  She noticed that the woman at the desk wore wide wristbands of small different-coloured beads on both wrists, the sleeves of the soft-knit top she wore only reaching her elbows.

  ‘Are you Lili Peel?’ Eve asked.

  The green eyes hardened. ‘I don’t do psychic readings any more.’

  Eve felt the disappointment drag at her. ‘I’m willing to pay more than your usual fee,’ she tried.

  ‘No. I mean it. I don’t do readings.’ Lili Peel picked up the crystal necklace and resumed threading it as if Eve had already gone.

  But Eve knew the blonde woman was still conscious of her; her hands shook a little as she drew the thread through its link. ‘Ms Peel, I really need your help. Something is happening and I have nobody else to turn to.’

  Still not looking up, Lili Peel said, ‘Try the local weekend newspaper, you’ll find small ads for spiritualists, clairvoyants, whatever you need.’

  ‘This can’t wait ’til the weekend. I have to do something now. Won’t you at least listen to me and then decide?’

  Lili laid the necklace down and regarded Eve, the hardness still there in her eyes, a lack of compassion that seemed so wrong for such a pretty girl.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything for you.’

  ‘You’re no longer psychic?’ Eve only asked the question because she wanted at least to engage Lili Peel in conversation, take it past the stranger-on-stranger stage.

  ‘You don’t choose to be psychic,’ Lili said, her voice softening only a little. ‘Neither do you choose not to be.’