by Sarah Rayne
Could anyone really be sure about it? Supposing there were ghosts in the world but the people who encountered them did not live to tell the tale? Or lived but were driven mad by the sight? Would Chad return in a few hours to find a gibbering wreck on the floor of this grisly place, and cart Jude off to the nearest psychiatric ward? He spent a few minutes considering this possibility. It might even be a benign, rather quirky, madness in the end. ‘Poor Mr Stratton,’ the nurses would say, ‘he often talks about spectral highwaymen and martyred monarchs – we hear him gossiping with the ghost of Ann Boleyn or Charles the First. Some night’s it’s as good as the Open University or BBC Two, and we’ve all got quite knowledgeable about history since he came.’
The black humour of this pleased Jude so much that he reached for the dictaphone to record a few sentences along those lines before he could forget them. Always kick off on a note of comedy if you can: it grabs the listeners’ attention from the start. Not that there had been much comedy about the last few years, nor was there likely to be much tonight, either. His voice, as he talked into the machine sounded eerie, but he was used to dictating reports in all kinds of odd places and he disregarded this and ended on a more sombre note.
‘Headless monarchs and spectral midnight coaches aside – to say nothing of Falling Houses of Usher – this is undoubtedly a place where there’s been very great sadness and fear, and you would have to have the mental skin of a rhinoceros not to feel that.’ He switched the tape off and it was only when the silence closed around him once again that he realized Chad’s team were still around – he could hear their footsteps. Probably they were getting some extra shots, although Chad had left the camcorder in here – it was whirring away quietly – Phin must be taking stills as well.
Jude opened the wine and poured it into the glass, doing so slowly and deliberately because of being filmed, pleased at managing these small manoeuvres smoothly. He set the bottle down far enough away not to knock it over by mistake and marked the position of it in his mind. Right-hand side, a bit more than an arm’s reach away. The specialist nurse had taught him to create a mental plan of a room and then file it for future reference. Then, when he went into that room or house again, he had only to refer to the plan, she said. Jude had resisted this, as he had resisted most suggestions for making his life easier, but in the end he had tried the small ploy and found it worked surprisingly well. He knew the layout of his recently acquired flat, even though he had never seen it.
But maps, mental or otherwise, would not help him tonight because tonight he was on his own in the dark. Nothing new there; he had been locked in his own particular darkness for the last two years. Don’t whine, Jude, just be glad you survived the bloody bomb and remember what the medics told you. They had said, Yes, of course it was tragic that he had not been rescued from the chaotic hell on the Syrian border much sooner and taken straight to a hospital: there was a chance that earlier treatment might have saved his sight. But they had also told him he had been extremely lucky there were no other injuries. Brain damage, amnesia or pronounced personality change, visible trauma to skull or cheekbones. There were worse things than bilateral detachment, they said, and in time he would learn to accept the blindness. Stuff that, Jude had thought, I’ll never accept it!
He set the wine glass down and leaned his head back against the wall, which would probably give him lice or something equally disagreeable, and deliberately opened his mind to his surroundings.
Chad and the other two had been very guarded, but there had been several half clues. Clearly this was a very run-down, very large old building, and its approach was along what was little more than a cart track. But wherever and whatever it was, it was thick with misery, anger and chock-full of the most dreadful despair Jude had ever encountered. It had not seemed to have the layout of a house. An institution of some kind? That seemed a strong possibility. One of the old Victorian asylums? A disused fever hospital or a workhouse? He switched on the dictaphone again.
‘One thing’s unpleasantly clear: this room doesn’t like me being here – it’s absolutely seething. There’s fear and bitterness in here – it’s almost as if they’ve soaked into the walls and as if they’re bouncing back at me now. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I certainly believe that strong feelings can leave an imprint.’
He found the Pause button, pressed it, thought for a few moments, and then went on.
‘There’s also an impression of some kind of very precise, almost formal event that used to take place here – something so carefully arranged, its pattern followed so strictly, that it might almost have been a ritual.’
He played this back, frowning over the final word. Ritual. The Black Mass? Devil worship? That seemed a bit hackneyed for Chad.
But the impression of solemnity was very vivid. A deconsecrated church? There was the feeling of prayers of some kind and the sense of figures moving in a procession. The feelings sharpened in his mind, like a fuzzy piece of film coming into focus. Men walking through a smeary early morning . . . And with them someone who could not walk on his own and was having to be helped . . . This last impression was so vivid that for a moment Jude thought he could hear the hesitant footsteps. He listened, but there was nothing. It was probably water dripping somewhere.
A ritual. A procession. But what had been at the culmination of that ritual? Jude frowned, trying to project his mind into the darkness to pick up something more. Nothing. He checked the Braille watch on his wrist. Half past eleven. Two and a half hours still to go. How about exploring the room a bit more to see if it felt different anywhere else?
Moving cautiously, he began to work his way around the walls. They felt like stone, and the floor felt like stone, as well, but everywhere seemed to be intact. He counted his steps as he went. It did not seem to be a very big room – perhaps it was twelve or fourteen feet square – but Jude still had no clue as to its purpose. He found his place with the cushions, dictated a couple of sentences to this effect, then set off again, this time walking outwards from the wall.
He had taken five paces when without warning the floor level changed. It was only a small change – nothing so deep as a step, but the stones vanished and in their place was timber, and the surface suddenly dropped by about an inch. If Jude had been able to see, he probably would hardly have noticed it, but without his sight the sudden change threw his senses out of kilter. He stumbled, lost his balance and fell. Something hard and angular struck his shoulder and he grabbed it as he went down.
Whatever it was he grabbed, moved, and beneath his feet something shivered. There was the sensation of old mechanism struggling to engage, and then a loud crack rent the air. This time the floor did not just shudder, it shook like the first tremor of an earthquake, and something stale and foetid seemed to gust straight into his face. There was a banging clatter, like a door slamming against a wall.
Jude gasped and instinctively curled into a ball, throwing his hands protectively over his head. For a dreadful moment the abruptness and intensity of the sound rocketed him straight back to the Iraqi village, with the world exploding in agonizing starbursts of colour before blackness seeped inexorably over his vision. But almost at once his senses steadied, and after a moment he was able to stand up. He was a bit shaky, his shoulder felt as if something had kicked it and the evil-smelling dust was still making him cough, but other than that he was all right. The Braille watch indicated five minutes to midnight.
He groped for the walking stick, at first only encountering the stone floor but eventually finding it. The clattering was dying away but the echoes of the original crash were still going on. In a moment Jude would try to find his way back to the familiar wall with the cushions, but first he would record what had just happened. He rescued the dictaphone from his pocket, and thankful to find it still working, managed to give a brief, businesslike account of what had happened.
‘The camera should have picked up all this,’ he said. ‘I have absolutely no idea what’s happened, but
whatever it was, it’s certainly stirred the atmosphere up – it’s like sitting inside a vat of boiling hatred and terror.’
He played this back. If there was the smallest hint of fear in his voice he would wipe the whole thing off and begin again, because he was damned if he was letting anyone know how frightened he had been. His voice sounded a bit tinny, which was because the dictaphone was small and not very powerful, but it did not sound frightened. He switched the machine off and tapped around with the stick, trying to get his bearings. Behind him was the bare cold stone. To his left and right was the wooden floor, its surface that disastrous couple of inches lower than the rest. And ahead of him—
Jude froze and panic scudded through him. Straight ahead – no more than three steps forward – the floor ended abruptly. An open cellar? Had he opened it by falling against that lump of iron? Had it been a handle? If so, it was a peculiar arrangement to open a cellar. But whatever it was, if he had taken those three steps without knowing he would have fallen over the edge and God knew how deep the cellar might be. He fought for calm, but his heart was racing and images of himself standing on the edge of a steep cliff swept through him. Despair overwhelmed him. This was how it would always be – this fear, this compulsion to stand absolutely still because he believed he was on the edge of a precipice. This choking fear of the impenetrable blackness.
But the floor behind him was stone and perfectly sound, so surely to God he could work his way around the yawning hole. He tested the floor immediately behind him and heard the cane’s tip ring reassuringly against solid stone. Good. If he moved carefully and checked the floor before each step he would get back to his place with perfect safety and he would stay put until Chad appeared. This would be the sensible option.
But Fenella had once said, in the days when Jude still had his sight, that he was as curious as a cat – she had made it sound rather an attractive quality. It was only after the bomb that she had begun complaining he asked too many questions; a person did not always want to give chapter and verse, she had said irritably, which was when Jude had known she was bored with his limitations and spoiling to be with someone else.
But although Fenella had gone, the cat-like curiosity had remained and it was strongly with him now. He wanted to know what had happened. It seemed as if some kind of cellar or under-floor space had been opened, but what sort of cellar needed that grating mechanism to open it?
Jude knelt down and felt around with his hand. Yes, here was the opening. He explored further and began to form a mental picture of a rectangle set into the floor, made from timber, roughly four feet square. In two parts, was it? Yes. Two doors – trapdoors? And the mechanism must have caused them to open. But either it had been faulty or it had simply been old, because only one door seemed to have opened – Jude thought he was kneeling on the other one. He tested it cautiously and felt the creak and the sag of old timbers. He crawled back to the safety of the stones, and then worked his way around the edge of the timber sections. This felt like the lever he had fallen against; he explored it gingerly with one hand, disliking the cold feel of its surface. And here was the open section of the cellar again. Were the doors hinged? Thinking he would reach around the entire frame to find out about hinges, he leaned cautiously over the open half.
As if something had reared up from the cellar and bitten his face, an image hurtled straight into his mind – a nightmare thing, dreadful. The staring face of a man, the cheeks suffused with crimson, the eyes bulging and glaring malevolently. Jude gasped and recoiled, scrambling back from the open edge as if he had been scalded, throwing up a hand in an automatic gesture of defence. The appalling thing vanished from his mind almost as quickly as it had come, but its ghost stayed with him, like the after-dazzle from staring at the sun for too long in high summer. He realized he was gripping his cane as if prepared to ward off a blow and that he was turning his head from side to side as if he could pierce the darkness. Stupid! he thought angrily. This is a darkness you’ll never pierce, remember?
He forced himself to take several deep breaths and, crawling on all fours, feeling his way as he went, finally managed to get back to his cushions. His mind was churning. Presently he located the wine bottle and poured himself a glass. He drank it gratefully and tried to arrange his thoughts into some kind of logical order.
When the doctors had eventually made the grim pronouncement that the damage to his eyes was irreversible, they had said the mind was a strange thing and the nervous system could play cruel tricks. Just as people continued to have sensation in an amputated arm or leg, so the brain might think it received the signals for seeing. It was known as phantom limb syndrome, and it was possible that Jude might experience a form of it – that he might get the occasional flashes of vision. Sadly though, they said, it would not mean his sight was returning. Jude had understood this, but in the two years since the bomb he had not experienced any such flashes of vision at all. That did not mean he had not experienced one tonight, although it did not make the experience particularly pleasant. Could the violent crash of the trapdoors have jarred the nerve-endings into this false vision? Jude supposed this was just about possible although it seemed a bit far-fetched.
He considered the possibility that there had been someone hiding in the cellar, and that whoever it was had stared balefully up at him when he leaned over the edge. It was just conceivable that his brain could have picked that up and conveyed it to him, but again he did not think this a very likely solution.
What about the more spiritual answer? What about the possibility that he had picked up a fragment of the room’s memories – an echo that had briefly taken on substance? Jude thought he could just about concede that one. Just about. It was no more far-fetched than the idea of a sudden phantom vision caused by the crash.
He forced himself to recall the image and examine it in more detail. He had seen enough bodies in Afghanistan and on the Iraqi borders to recognize death, and he was fairly sure that the fixed glaring eyes he had just seen had been a death-stare. There had been some kind of collar around the neck. But why would a dead man be wearing a collar?
His thoughts spun this way and that, like a child’s kaleidoscope shaken into whirling meaningless patterns, but nothing made any sense, and if there was a pattern he was not identifying it. Think, damn it! Put the facts together. The face, the cellar at the room’s centre, the mechanism . . .
The fragments of thoughts stopped tumbling and suddenly and startlingly Jude understood. What he had taken for a collar had been the flesh of the man’s neck, purple and swollen. It had been the neck – and the face – of a man who had been hanged.
He knew now where he was. He was in the execution chamber of a deserted gaol. The wooden doors were the trapdoors over the gallows pit, and the face he had seen was the face of a man who had been hanged.
‘After that there was nothing,’ said Jude to Chad, Drusilla and Phin. ‘But I’ll freely admit it was a very long two hours.’
It was just on three a.m. Chad and Phin had collected Jude an hour earlier; Phin had expected Jude to be exhausted: he thought if he had spent half a night inside Calvary he would have wanted nothing more than to crash out until lunchtime the next day. But when they got back to the King’s Head, Jude merely went up to his room to wash away Calvary’s dust, and then joined the others wearing jeans and a clean sweater. The dark glasses were in place, and so far from being exhausted or wanting to crash out he crackled with energy like a cat’s fur in a thunderstorm.
The manager had left the coffee room open for them, and had also left out a percolator. Drusilla made coffee which Phin handed round. While they drank it, Jude played the recording he had made, occasionally stopping the machine to explain or elaborate. He spoke fluently and easily, conjuring up the brooding atmosphere of the old gaol and the curious echoes that it harboured. The recording ended with a description of the odd vivid image that had printed itself onto his mind.
‘I’m convinced he had been hanged,’ said Jud
e, when the tape finished. ‘I saw a couple of bodies in Syria – men who had died that way. Some kind of local punishment it had been – we got there after it was all over, but once you’ve seen—’ He broke off and then said, ‘It wasn’t until I saw that – face, that I guessed where I was. It was the execution room of a disused gaol, wasn’t I?’
‘Yes,’ said Chad after a moment.
‘I thought so. My God, it’s no wonder it held all that hatred and despair and terror. You all felt that, didn’t you?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Chad.
‘I’m still sceptical about ghosts in general,’ said Jude, ‘but I’ve been in enough odd places in the world to know that strong emotions can linger in quite peculiar ways. I think that’s what happened tonight. You’ve got your theory proved, Professor, because I picked something up – something from the past. It’s the only explanation I can come up with.’ He frowned. ‘Was it really a gallows trap I opened when I tripped over my own feet?’
‘We’ll have a look at the footage tomorrow – today, I mean,’ said Chad. ‘But there’s nothing else it could be.’
‘It was like taking the lid of a bubbling cauldron,’ said Jude, half to himself.
‘At least you didn’t fall in,’ said Chad. ‘I did tell you to be careful if you went on a voyage of discovery.’
‘We tried to disable the lever,’ said Phin, ‘but it was only a very makeshift arrangement. Actually we thought it was old enough not to work properly any longer, or cause any problems.’
‘It wouldn’t have caused a problem if Jude had stayed put,’ said Chad. He looked back at Jude. ‘The gaol’s called Calvary,’ he said. ‘It was known as the murderers’ prison, and it was used almost exclusively for executions in this part of England, although they had some life-sentence prisoners as well. But life sentences were quite rare until comparatively recently – killers were usually hanged or transported.’
