The Secret of Crickley Hall

by James Herbert

  ‘But if you can help people . . .?’ Eve let the question hang.

  ‘It doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes it does more harm than good. Please, I don’t mean to be rude, but there really isn’t anything I can assist you with.’

  ‘Hear me out, that’s all I ask. If you still can’t help me – if you don’t want to help me – then fine, I’ll leave your shop and won’t bother you again.’ Tears blurred Eve’s eyes and she tried to control the tremble in her voice. ‘I’m so . . . I’m so desperate. Perhaps it will help me just to talk about it.’

  She couldn’t stop them. Eve had tried to stay in control, but the tears just came unbidden. She had put too much hope into something that might only have been a dream or illusion. She dug into her pocket for a handkerchief.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, at least containing her sobs. ‘I didn’t mean to . . . ’

  Lili Peel still eyed her coolly, but said: ‘There’s a chair by the wall. Why don’t you bring it over to the desk.’

  Gabe didn’t want to frighten Cally; he kept his tone light. ‘Hey, how y’doing, Sparky?’

  ‘’Lo Daddy.’ She went on positioning her little plastic people around the little plastic house. A yellow Bart Simpson was somewhere among them.

  She seems calm enough, thought Gabe. But then, nothing seemed to faze Cally much. Surely he must have imagined the lights? Or it was a trick of the light, the sun shining through remaining raindrops on the window. But then, why had the lights disappeared almost as soon as he laid eyes on them?

  He went over to his daughter and squatted by her. ‘You having a good time there, honey? Is ol’ Bart in trouble again?’

  ‘He’s bin good.’

  Gabe watched her as she manoeuvred the teeny plastic people around the miniature house whose whole front wall was swung open.

  ‘Who were you talking to, Cally?’ he ventured cautiously. ‘To these guys?’ He motioned towards the plastic Lilliputian figures.

  ‘Nowah.’ The negative had two syllables, rising at the end as though she was impatient with his dumb question.

  ‘Really? Oh, who then?’

  She shrugged. ‘My friends.’

  ‘Your friends? The ones you make up?’

  ‘Nowah.’ Two impatient syllables again, now uttered with disinterest.

  ‘Well, who then? I can’t see anybody.’

  ‘They’ve gone now. Gone away.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘You know – the children.’

  He studied her bowed head for a moment.

  ‘Why can’t I see them?’ he asked.

  She became even more impatient with him. ‘’Cos you can’t, Daddy. I told you, they’ve gone away.’

  ‘But why didn’t I see them before they went, you know, when I came into the room?’

  ‘I ’unno.’

  Bart Simpson was becoming a regular pain. ‘Tell me properly, Squirt. Why didn’t I see the kids?’

  ‘’Cos they’re a secret,’ she answered, finally looking up at him.

  ‘I think I saw the lights, those little floating lights. But they went away as soon as I came in. Is that what you mean, are the lights the children?’

  ‘Children are jus’ children, Daddy,’ she explained as if he were the child and she the adult.

  ‘Uh, do you see them a lot? The children, I mean.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘What d’you do when they come?’

  ‘We play.’

  He rose to his feet, knowing he was not going to get any more from her. What is it about this goddamn place? he asked himself. ‘Okay, Sparky – ’ he began to say, but whirled towards the door when a great banging started up outside on the landing.

  Cally stared after him in alarm as he rushed through the doorway.

  28: CAM

  ‘My son Cameron disappeared a year ago,’ Eve began to tell Lili Peel. Almost a year ago’ – she corrected herself. I’d taken Cam, as we always called him, and his sister, Cally – she was four years old then, a year younger than my son – I’d taken them to a local park. Our home is in London, but we’re here in Devon while my husband conducts some business with a Devon-based company.’ She didn’t feel details were necessary at this stage, but the psychic asked a question.

  ‘Where are you living while you’re here?’

  Eve dabbed at her eyes, the tears all but dried out now, while the misery lingered as always; there was no relief in tears for her.

  ‘Near Hollow Bay. Do you know it?’

  ‘I’ve visited once or twice.’ Lili Peel didn’t add that she had never liked the place, even though the harbour village was pretty enough. It was the atmosphere she didn’t care for, the unsettling gloom that somehow shadowed the place. She supposed that, as a sensitive, she picked up vibes more easily than other normal’ people. Two years ago I left my card in the shop there.’

  ‘Yes. Of course you know Hollow Bay.’ Eve crumpled the handkerchief into a ball in her fist. ‘You have no Devon accent, though. You’re not from the county.’

  ‘No, I come from Surrey. I moved here seven years ago.’ She’d answered curtly as if reluctant to talk about herself.

  Lili Peel must have come to Devon in her early twenties – she could be no more than twenty-eight, twenty-nine.

  ‘Have you always had the gift?’ Eve nevertheless enquired.

  ‘If you can call it that,’ the psychic replied. ‘I realized I was different, that I seemed to know things I shouldn’t, from the age of seven. If my parents ever mislaid something – anything from a sewing needle to the car keys – I always knew where it was.’ She said no more, expecting Eve to continue.

  Eve gathered herself, resolving to tell the story of her missing son without too much emotion. It wouldn’t be easy, not even after all this time.

  ‘Cally was asleep in her buggy, while I watched Cam from a bench close to the park’s play area. He was on the swings, then at the climbing frame – he seemed to be all over the place at once. I kept my eyes on him all the time and it was only later when he wanted to play in the sandpit that I relaxed. Although the weather was cold and the sand was damp, Cam insisted on playing in there, so I let him. I thought at least he could come to no harm; there wasn’t any way he could injure himself. And so, yes, I relaxed for a few moments.’

  It was painful for Eve to relive that horrendous day, but she managed to maintain control. Months and months of guilt and sorrow had worn her down; going over and over that crisply cold day in October time and time again in her mind until she was exhausted with it, tortured by it. Perhaps it was emotional fatigue that stemmed her tears now.

  ‘I was a freelance writer for fashion magazines back then,’ she went on, even now hating herself for having such a time-consuming and wearing job, on a freelance basis or not. ‘I’d worked ’til three in the morning to meet a copy date, and I was very tired. I’d promised Cam and Cally – we have another daughter, Loren, who’s now twelve years old – I’d promised I’d take them to the park the previous day if they left me alone long enough to write my piece.’ She smiled wanly. ‘As it was, I never really got into the article during the day – too many phone calls, too many other things going on – which is why I ended up working late into the night and the following morning.’

  She paused and Lili Peel at least nodded sympathetically.

  ‘I fell asleep on the park bench. I don’t know how long for – it felt like seconds, but it must have been minutes, several minutes. There were lots of other children with their mothers in the play area, so I thought he’d be all right. Even so, I didn’t deliberately go to sleep; it just happened, sleep just overcame me.’

  Eve cast her eyes downwards, away from the psychic’s stare.

  ‘When I woke up, Cam was gone. Cally was wide awake and howling to be let out of her buggy so she could play too. It must have been her crying that roused me. I looked towards the sandpit – it was only a few yards away – and Cam wasn’t there any more. I looked every
where in the play area and rushed up to other mothers and older children to ask them if they’d seen Cam anywhere. I asked them if they’d seen anyone take my son away. I was frantic, close to hysteria, and some of the mothers were kind enough to help me look further afield. We split up, each of us going in different directions into the main park, searching, asking people if they’d seen a blond-haired little boy wandering on his own or being led away by some person, man or woman.’

  Eve’s upper body sagged in the chair as she experienced – yet again – the nightmare.

  ‘But it was hopeless. Cam had vanished. I rang the police on my mobile and they sent a WPC over; together, Cally very quiet in her buggy as if she sensed something was terribly wrong, we covered every inch of the park. The policewoman did her best to calm me down while we looked, but by then I was completely strung out. Because it was October, dusk came quickly, and by then there was a whole team of policemen and women searching for Cam in the park and the area around it. They even drove me back to my own home and scoured it from top to bottom. My son went on the missing persons’ list right away, and I believe the police did their best to find him, but we never saw our little boy again.’

  Lili Peel’s voice had softened only slightly. ‘Did you – did the police – suspect he’d been snatched?’

  ‘Eventually a kidnapping was my only hope. And although we never received a ransom note or call – not that we’re wealthy anyway – and known paedophiles in the neighbourhood were questioned, the police never found Cam, nor any trace of him – a piece of clothing, a lost shoe. Nothing.’

  The psychic’s next question was put awkwardly. ‘Mrs Caleigh – Eve, are you asking me to contact your dead son for you?’

  Eve sat rigid in the chair. ‘No,’ she almost shouted. Then, softer: ‘No, Cam isn’t dead, don’t you see? That’s why I don’t care if you’re not a clairvoyant or spiritualist, a medium, whatever they call themselves. I’m certain my son is alive and that’s why I’m asking you to use your psychic ability to reach him.’

  ‘Eve . . . Eve, why do you think Cam is still alive after all this time? It’s a hard thing for me to say, but you have no evidence that he’s alive. How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because I would know if he were dead, I would feel he wasn’t here any more. A mother just knows these things. Call it intuition, or – or telepathy, but I truly sense Cameron is still here, still alive.’

  She stumbled over her words as she tried to explain, tried to convince this person that her son wasn’t dead. ‘Cam . . . Cam . . . and I . . . we were so, so close. Some of the time – no, most of the time we even knew – we even knew what the other one was thinking, something I don’t share with my daughters.’

  Eve raised her left hand, her fingers straight and joined together. Then she lifted the right one, putting both hands together, palms facing inwards towards herself.

  Lili Peel looked at them, mystified.

  ‘You see the little finger on my right hand?’ Eve said, jabbing that hand forward an inch. ‘You see? It’s much, much shorter than the little finger of my left hand.’ She joined both hands again, both little fingers side by side.

  The psychic saw that Eve was correct: there was a marked difference in the sizes of the smallest fingers, the one on the right far shorter than the one on the left. But she shook her head, not understanding.

  Eve dropped her hands into her lap. ‘A medium, a credible one I interviewed a long time ago, noticed how my right little finger was shorter than usual and it was she who told me to compare both hands. I suppose I’d never really thought about it before; I’d noticed, but had just accepted the difference, it was of no consequence. But the medium, who’d impressed me during the interview, told me it was a sign that I had the capacity for psychic ability, but that I’d never bothered to use it.’

  She briefly showed her right hand again. ‘When I informed her my very young son’s hands were the same, she said it was a sign that we shared a telepathic link. And it made sense to me. That was why we often knew what the other was thinking, how Cam was always aware when I’d been hurt, even if it was only a stubbed toe. He could be at playschool or somewhere off with his father and he’d know it and would ask me about it when he got home. He was only a toddler, but he would know my moods instantly, whether I was happy or sad, and he’d act appropriately. I didn’t sense things in quite the same way he did; his ability, maybe because he’s just a child and his mind is still clear and open to such things, has always been stronger than mine. I’d always considered my own sensing of him to be just maternal instinct anyway, even though it wasn’t the same between my daughters and me.’

  The other woman attempted to calm Eve, who had become quite agitated again. ‘Wait, wait a minute.’ She held up her own hand to stop her and dropped it again. ‘If you both share this extrasensory gift, then why hasn’t your son contacted you by now? You might feel within yourself that he’s alive – and I’m sorry to be so harsh – but why hasn’t he let you know?’

  ‘But he has, don’t you see? True, I haven’t received what you might call a clear “mental message” from him, but I think he’s been trying to let me know he’s alive ever since he disappeared.’

  ‘You’re sure of this?’

  ‘No, I can’t be sure! How could I be? I’ve had my doubts since he’s been gone, but that’s only natural. I’ve always come back to the feeling – the sensing – that Cam is still here, though. What’s more, something happened on Sunday that confirmed those feelings, something that prompted me to come to you.’

  One hand clutching the edge of the small desk, Eve went on to describe the events of two days ago, that early Sunday afternoon when she had dozed on the couch in Crickley Hall’s sitting room: how Cam – she was certain it was Cam even if she hadn’t actually seen him; her deepest inner feelings couldn’t be wrong – had touched and soothed her after she had been frightened by something dark . . . something evil that was somehow connected to the house itself. And then waking to find Cam’s photograph had fallen onto the floor. She stared earnestly into the psychic’s green eyes.

  ‘I knew it was my son who made the bad thing go away,’ she insisted. ‘I couldn’t have imagined it all.’

  Behind her, Eve heard the shop door open, followed by the heavy trudge of boots on wood flooring. Lili Peel had already looked towards the entrance and Eve swivelled on the chair to see the customer who had entered. It was a woman, middle-aged, portly, a scarf round her head, a closed umbrella in one hand. She was wearing hiking boots, baggy corduroys tucked into the ankles.

  The customer frowned back at the two figures sitting at the desk and something must have been conveyed to her, a feeling that she’d interrupted something important and private, for she quickly picked up a stone ornament on a shelf, turned it over in her hand, perhaps to find the price sticker on the bottom, and just as quickly returned it to the shelf. Without inspecting another thing, the woman left the shop, closing the door quietly as she went.

  Lili Peel jumped in first before Eve could say another word. She rested her elbows on the desktop, clasping her hands together, and said: ‘Because someone has the psychic gift, it doesn’t necessarily follow that that person believes in ghosts.’

  She lifted a hand again, palm towards Eve, who was about to interrupt.

  ‘As it happens,’ Lili Peel went on, ‘I do believe in ghosts and the afterlife. So what I want to know is, what makes you so sure that what you saw or sensed wasn’t, in fact, your son’s spirit, his ghost? It would sound more reasonable to me. Spirits have been known to move material objects, so why not the photograph? Why do you think it was telepathy rather than contact with your dead son’s ethereal spirit?’

  Her eyes bore into Eve’s with a coldness to them, a kind of brittle hardness that could not be easily broken.

  ‘Because Cam gave me hope again,’ Eve responded immediately. ‘I had almost given up, almost come to believe Cameron was dead, I just couldn’t find it within myself to accept it.
My doubts have been steadily growing stronger these last few months; but on Sunday, after what happened, the feeling it left me with, I knew, just knew, Cam was alive and trying to contact me through his mind. He’s trying to tell me where I can find him.’

  The psychic was silent for a few moments, as if she didn’t know how to react. Then those green eyes hardened once again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but that’s not enough.’ Her tone was still curt, as if she were determined not to accept Eve’s conviction. ‘It doesn’t mean your son is alive. The opposite, if anything.’

  Eve’s own voice became curt. ‘What if I told you he was being helped by others?’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  Eve, undaunted by the younger woman’s attitude and without a trace of self-doubt, went on to explain what had been happening in the house they were renting, the rappings, the small pools of water, the cellar door that refused to stay shut. She told the psychic about the running footsteps she and her family had heard coming from the attic dormitory. She told Lili Peel about the spinning top and the dancing children that she and Cally had witnessed, the small faces at the dormer windows. Eve told her that eleven children had perished in the house, drowned in the great flood of 1943.

  ‘This house,’ said Lili Peel. ‘What’s it called? It has a name, doesn’t it, not a number?’

  Eve was surprised by the question. ‘Yes. It’s called Crickley Hall. Do you know of it?’

  A shadow seemed to pass over the psychic’s face. She stared intently at Eve. ‘I was told about the floods when I was last in Hollow Bay. When I gave my card to the shopkeeper to put in her window, she read it and said if I was a psychic I should go up to Crickley Hall. Plenty of ghosts up there, she said, then she told me about the flood and the children, and that nobody had ever stayed at Crickley Hall for long. It was an unhappy house, she said, and I thought that in a strange way she enjoyed telling me about it. I remember passing the place – across a short wooden bridge, the shopkeeper said, a mile or so up the lane – and I remember I shivered when I saw it. There was a terrible depression about the place, not unlike the depression that hangs over the village itself, only this was stronger, more concentrated.’