The Secret of Crickley Hall

by James Herbert

  ‘Then you do think it could be haunted? Haunted by those poor children.’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I’ve never been inside, so I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘But you said there was an atmosphere – a depression – about it, which you felt even though you were only passing by.’

  ‘Some houses are affected by the tragic things that happen in them. It’s as if the walls retain the memory. It doesn’t mean they’re haunted, though.’

  Lili Peel was silent for a few moments. Then, abruptly: ‘No, I won’t – I can’t – help you.’

  Eve was dismayed. After all she had told the psychic, how she’d poured out her heart to her and had thought she was being believed. Despite her curtness, Eve had thought Lili Peel was sympathetic. Now she was refusing to help her.

  ‘Haven’t I convinced you?’ she asked at last, almost pleadingly.

  ‘It isn’t that, although I wonder why, if as you say your son and you have always shared a telepathic link, he hasn’t let you know his whereabouts psychically.’

  ‘Because our mutual ability, especially mine, isn’t strong enough. That’s why I need you.’

  ‘But what can I do?’

  ‘You can help me find my son. If I do have any power it’s too weak to strengthen the psychic link with Cameron. If you’re genuinely psychic, it shouldn’t be too difficult for you. I’m not interested in ghosts, I don’t care if Crickley Hall is haunted or not; all I want you to do is talk to Cam. I know you can succeed where I’ve failed.’

  Lili Peel was suddenly suspicious. ‘What does your husband feel about this?’ She had leaned back in her chair, one hand remaining on the desk, the other falling to her lap.

  ‘He . . . he doesn’t know about Cam coming to me.’

  ‘That’s curious. You haven’t told him?’

  ‘Gabe is awkward about this kind of thing. He doesn’t really believe in it.’

  ‘He’s heard noises, has seen some kind of evidence, as you have, hasn’t he?’

  Eve gave a shake of her head as if dismissing her husband’s part in the matter. ‘He has heard noises, yes, and he was the one who discovered the puddles that appeared from nowhere. Gabe thinks there’s a natural explanation for it all. But then he hasn’t experienced what I have.’

  The psychic exhaled a short but heavy breath, perhaps one of annoyance, Eve couldn’t be sure.

  ‘How do I know you haven’t imagined these ghosts?’ the psychic said. ‘You seem distraught, you’re obviously still in deep grief over your loss. Depression mixed with hope and anxiety can do a lot to the mind, can make you believe in the impossible. Perhaps even cause you to hallucinate. I think a doctor might help you better than I’m able.’

  ‘I’m not mad, I’m not imagining.’ Despair was provoking anger in Eve. ‘I’m not hallucinating.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting you’re mad. But you are overwrought and that can—’

  ‘Please, won’t you help me?’

  Lili Peel was startled by the fierceness of the outburst. When she spoke again, it was calmly, but determinedly. ‘I no longer use my gift, Mrs Caleigh. Not deliberately, that is – I can’t stop sensing some things, but I no longer practise as a psychic.’

  ‘But why?’ Tears had again formed in Eve’s eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I want you to leave now. Your problems aren’t mine, and I don’t want them to be. I can’t help you.’

  Eve was defeated. There was nothing more she could say to change Lili Peel’s mind and she knew it. The expression on the other woman’s face was resolute. Eve was beaten.

  She slowly rose to her feet, gave one last look of appeal to the psychic, who refused to meet her gaze, and left the shop.

  Eve couldn’t quite understand how – or why – the meeting with Lili Peel had ended so abruptly.

  29: HIDDEN

  Gabe shifted the cardboard boxes, dumping them unceremoniously outside on the landing. Cally watched as he ducked back inside the cupboard, her first finger crooked over her short little nose, the thumb of the same hand lodged between her milk teeth. Daddy looked very serious.

  The knocking he and Cally had heard coming from the landing cupboard again stopped even before Gabe touched the doorknob, but he was determined to find its cause this time.

  The boxes were not heavy and through the open lid of one Gabe saw it contained cleaning utensils and liquids – a bottle of Jif and another half-filled bottle of green detergent, bleach, a scrubbing brush and one or two pieces of wrinkled rag, as well as a duster. This was obviously where Crickley Hall’s regular cleaners stowed their gear for the upper floor; he had already removed the mop and broom.

  Only the rolled-up rug remained inside the cupboard and Gabe snatched it up and threw it out onto the landing. ‘Okay, you son-of-a-bitch,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘let’s see what you’re hiding.’

  But all he could make out at the back of the cupboard was the wall that for some reason had been painted black. The two thin waterpipes that were low to the floor disappeared through a small hole cut out of the wall’s left-hand corner and Gabe bent low to study it. No animal, mouse-size or otherwise, could have squeezed through the space between the pipes and the edge of the cutout. He ran his fingers along the floor, feeling for any other holes at the base of the wall, but there were none.

  Carefully, he backed out, rising as he went, making sure he didn’t bump into Cally, who was watching from the doorway.

  ‘Have you found somethink, Daddy?’ she asked, staring up at him as he loomed over her.

  ‘Not yet, honey,’ he replied. ‘Gonna need more light.’

  He took his daughter by the hand and led her to the top of the stairs.

  ‘Wait right here, Sparky,’ he instructed her, ‘while I go get me the flashlight.’ He held up a finger in front of her face as if the gesture would augment the command, then hurried down the broad staircase, taking two steps at a time, too agile to miss a step. The flashlight had been left by the telephone on the chiffonier and he quickly grabbed it, switching it on in advance as he mounted the stairs again. Cally was waiting right where he had left her, thumb in her mouth, eyes wide with curiosity and just a little nervousness. He gave her a reassuring smile and tousled her hair as he passed. Striding back to the open landing cupboard, he realized he should have also brought his toolbox with him; he might need a long screwdriver or claw hammer to prise up a floorboard or two.

  Gabe stooped to enter the cupboard again and Cally peered round the doorframe. Once through the door, he was able to straighten, although not to his full height; the interior ceiling wasn’t high enough for that and it slanted downwards towards the back. Shining the torch beam around, he examined walls, floor and ceiling more thoroughly, checking for openings that rodents might use. There weren’t any.

  He briefly wondered why anyone would bother to paint the back wall black, and that made him curious. He moved further into the cupboard, stooping low, and the circle of light from the torch became smaller, more concentrated, on the rear wall’s pitchy surface.

  Looking at the edges all around, he noticed that the paint slightly overlapped the surrounding walls and floor, as if whoever had done the painting had been a little slapdash. Whatever the reason for the colour, it made the cupboard look deeper than it really was, the slope of the ceiling adding to the illusion. He pressed the black wall with his fingertips, testing its solidity, then rapped on it with his knuckles. It sounded hollow.

  A false wall? Now that could be interesting. The wall sounded and felt like it was made of thin wood. When he had pressed the surface it seemed to give slightly.

  Going down on both knees, Gabe inspected the edges once again, this time more carefully, seeking any flaws or breaks that could be used for leverage. But the black paint had been laid on so thickly that all four sides were sealed.

  Shoulda brought the toolbox up with me, he admonished himself again. Coulda sliced through the paint with a blade or screwdriver, used either one to pull out the who
le partition.

  He hunched, stretching himself forward to examine the corner where the waterpipes passed through the wooden wall.

  ‘Whatcha doin’, Daddy?’

  He looked over his shoulder to see Cally cautiously poking her head into the cupboard.

  ‘Gonna try something. You just hang on out there.’

  ‘’Kay.’

  Gabe dug the index finger of his left hand beneath the lowest pipe and felt the hole beneath it. The bottom corner of the black-painted board had been cut away to allow the pipes access so that there was a small space underneath the lower pipe.

  ‘Might work,’ he told himself as he hooked his finger around the edge of the wall. Gabe gave the wood a tentative tug and was surprised when the rear wall moved a fraction with a loud crack. He renewed his efforts, pulling harder this time, no longer testing the board’s strength, and the crack was as sharp as a starter pistol when the wood came away a few inches. In the beam of his flashlight and through the curls of disturbed dust, Gabe saw that all the sealing paint along the floor and part of one wall had split. Encouraged, and with more space for a better grip, he wrapped his fingers around the edge of the wood and pulled as hard as he could.

  The wooden board that served as the cupboard’s rear wall suddenly came away with an even fiercer cracking and he realized that it had only been nailed at the sides to long thin stanchions, the nail heads covered by the black paint, making them invisible to the eye.

  Cally expelled a frightened cry at the sound and jerked away from the cupboard doorway, her hands flying to her face. Gabe hadn’t noticed; he was too busy shining the light through the gap he had made. The partition was still partly attached to the right-hand stanchion, but by holding back the bottom edge and crouching even lower he could see there was something behind the false wall. Something that obviously had been hidden back there.

  30: THE PUNISHMENT BOOK

  Eve gathered up the two plastic bags full of shopping from the back seat of the Range Rover. She hadn’t bought much from the supermarket in Pulvington, but enough to justify her visit to the town. She had been too distracted to concentrate on a full shop, so had bought only essentials that would get her family through the rest of the week. She would tell Gabe the supermarket was too busy and too noisy for her to stay long.

  Overhead the sky had clouded up again, dulling the afternoon and promising an early dusk.

  She closed the car door with an elbow and, logoed shopping bags in either hand, she made her way across the bridge towards Crickley Hall. There was a thin green slime on some of the damp boards, which made the bridge slippery, and she went with care. The river below looked angry and brown with loose soil that had broken off from the riverbanks further upstream and she wondered how much more rain it would take to make it overflow; she was sure the level had risen since that morning. Halfway across she glanced up at the Hall’s rooftop windows as if expecting to see small colourless faces peering down at her. There was nothing there, though; nobody was watching her. Nevertheless, she felt exposed.

  Dejected because her visit to the psychic’s crafts shop had proved so disappointing, Eve took the path leading across the muddy lawn to the house’s front door, her boots crunching on the sparse gravel. Her head was bowed, not with the physical burden of her load, but with the mental burden of her despair. She was helpless, powerless on her own to make the vital contact that she knew her lost son was seeking, unable to complete the telepathic link between them by herself. What could she do now? Consult another psychic? That would take time and there was an urgency in her that she herself did not quite understand. Somehow she knew it was important to find Cam soon, before . . . before it was too late . . . She would have to look for another psychic, then.

  Perhaps irrationally, she could not face having to explain herself to Gabe. She was only too aware of his frustration with her, no matter how well he concealed it, and she feared that her endeavours now would finally end his patience with her for not coming to terms with their loss. But she would never accept it, not while there was still a chance, not when there were signs . . .

  Eve went past the front door, making for the kitchen door instead, so deep in her own thoughts that she failed to notice Gabe standing by the table through the window. She turned the corner and laid one of the shopping bags on the step so that she could use her key, but Gabe beat her to it.

  ‘Hey,’ he greeted, reaching for the shopping bag in her hand. He took it from her, then stooped to collect the other one.

  ‘Hi,’ she returned as she stepped inside. ‘Has Cally been okay? She didn’t bother you while you were working?’

  ‘She’s the best, no problem at all. She’s taking a nap right now.’ Gabe frowned. Eve seemed to be avoiding his eyes as she unzipped her coat and hung it on the rack by the door.

  ‘Chester?’ she queried over her shoulder. ‘Anything?’

  ‘Uh-uh. Still missing.’ He silently cursed himself for using the wrong word: too many connotations. ‘I rang the police again, but no stray dog’s been spotted or turned in,’ he said quickly, to move from the ‘missing’ word. ‘Told me they’d get their patrolman for this area to keep a lookout.’

  For the first time she noticed the old gardener sitting quietly and unobtrusively on the other side of the kitchen table. She was feeling too low to be surprised.

  Eve greeted him with little enthusiasm. ‘Hello, Percy.’

  ‘Missus.’ He nodded his head without smiling at her. His cap was in his hands on his lap, but he hadn’t removed his storm coat.

  ‘Percy was outside working on the flowerbeds,’ said Gabe, ‘so I called him in to take a look at this stuff.’

  Now Eve saw what was on the kitchen table. Curious, she moved closer.

  A book of about the size and proportions of an accountant’s ledger lay next to a long wooden stick. Its stiff black cover was dusty – someone, probably Gabe, had obviously wiped it with his hand, for there were streaks across the surface where the black was more intense. The cover’s corners were wrinkled, as if battered by wear, and a label, yellow with age, had been glued onto it. Written on the label in neat capital letters that, although faded, were still legible, were the words:

  Eve realized then that the wooden stick lying next to the book was a thin bamboo cane, one end of which was split into even thinner slivers of at least six inches in length. It was the type of cane that, in a different era, some teachers used to beat disobedient or unruly schoolchildren. And just in front of Percy, as if he had been studying it before Eve came in, was a creased black and white photograph. But it was the Punishment Book that really drew her attention.

  ‘My God,’ she said, ‘what is this?’

  Gabe waved a hand that took in all the items laid out on the otherwise unoccupied kitchen table. ‘It’s some interesting stuff I found earlier. Know where they were?’ The question was rhetorical; he went on. ‘Behind a phoney wall inside the landing closet.’

  He told Eve about the now familiar noises he and Cally had heard coming from the upstairs cupboard, the loud knocking sounds, and how he had discovered the black-painted false wall that some time in the past had been used as a hideaway. ‘It wasn’t very deep, just enough space for the book and cane. Oh, and the photograph over there by Percy.’

  Gabe picked up the cane with the split end and sliced it through the air, bringing it down hard on the black-covered book.

  Swish–thwack!

  Eve flinched at the harsh sound it made. Dust billowed up from the book.

  Gabe lifted the bamboo cane again and this time brought it down gently onto the palm of his hand. ‘See how the ends splay out when they hit. Now imagine it hard against a kid’s hand, or leg, or butt. You’d have to be a sadist to use it.’ There was no humour in Gabe’s tight-lipped grin.

  ‘Cribben?’

  ‘Yeah, Augustus Theophilus Cribben. Cribben, custodian and headmaster to those evacuees back in ’43. This place was supposed to be a safe haven for ’em, out of reac
h from those German bombs that were blitzing the big cities in the last world war. Huh! Some haven.’ Gabe indicated again, this time pointing the cane at the big black book. ‘S’all in there, written up, all the things he did to those kids, everything recorded in detail, dates and all.’

  Percy spoke up and there was a bitterness to his words. ‘The man was evil, cruel. Oh, a good Christian all right, an’ highly thought of by some in these parts. But they didn’t know, not the authorities, nor our own vicar, who wouldn’t listen to me, wouldn’t take notice, always insisted Cribben were a God-fearing man who believed in strict discipline for children. Well, Cribben might’ve been God-fearing, but he were no good! Wrong in the head, to my thinking, righteous but wicked underneath. Him an’ his sister both. Magda Cribben was a cold-hearted woman, in her way just as cruel as her brother.’

  Percy’s pale watery eyes had become moist and they stared straight ahead, looking neither at Eve or Gabe as he remembered the past.

  ‘Nancy told me about the things that went on in Crickley Hall behind closed doors, but I don’t think she knew the half of it. Otherwise she’d have done something about the situation. Instead she just up an’ left. Or so we was told.’

  Now he did look directly at Eve, his eyes troubled. She remembered his tale of Nancy Linnet, the young teacher who had become his sweetheart all those years ago, and Eve couldn’t tell if the regret in his eyes was for Nancy and their doomed relationship, or for the children who had suffered so much in this place. She picked up the black book from the table and opened it.

  God, Gabe was right, she thought, staring at the neat, rigid handwriting: there were names and dates, punishments accorded as well as the reasons for them, all written down in dulled-by-time blue ink. The reason for punishment was the same in every case: misbehaviour. And as far as Eve could tell, none of the children appeared to have escaped it, for all the names she remembered from the church’s memorial board were mentioned, some more than others. And the dates started around late August 1943, apparently soon after the evacuees had arrived at Crickley Hall.