The Secrets of Ghosts

by Sarah Painter

Katie stood up, brushing grass off her skirt. ‘I’m going to look for a watch.’

  ‘What?’ Max shaded his eyes and looked up at Katie.

  She shrugged, looking embarrassed. ‘Mr Cole’s watch. I just need to find it. I’m going to check Lost Property.’

  ‘Hang on,’ he said, getting up. ‘How do you know about the watch? Did he give it to you? I wouldn’t put it past the old letch—’

  Katie’s eyes widened slightly. ‘What do you know about his watch?’

  Max put his hands on his hips and they stared at each other in silence for a moment or two. Max broke first. ‘I need to find it.’

  ‘Well, so do I,’ Katie said. She turned and walked towards the hotel.

  ‘It belongs to me. I won it,’ Max said. He followed her across the grass.

  ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Katie said.

  ‘What’s your claim to it?’ Max said.

  Katie didn’t answer.

  ‘If you find it, you need to give it to me. It’s mine.’

  This wasn’t good. Was Mr Cole’s spirit asking her to get his watch off Max, because that seemed dangerous. Max seemed like the kind of person who wasn’t going to give up in a hurry. Unless Mr Cole’s spirit really did feel bad about not paying his gambling debt. Maybe he did want Katie to find the watch and hand it over to Max. If only the magpie had been a bit clearer. That was so often the problem with magic. It was so bloody cryptic.

  Inside the hotel felt blessedly cool after the scorching garden. Anna was behind the reception desk, fanning herself with a brochure.

  ‘Hello,’ Max said, bypassing Katie and smiling at Anna. ‘I’ve lost something and I was hoping you could help me?’

  ‘Of course,’ Anna said, putting the brochure down.

  ‘I’ve lost a handkerchief,’ Max said, leaning on the desk and gazing into Anna’s eyes. He smiled a little. ‘It’s not worth anything, but it’s of sentimental value.’

  ‘You could look in Lost Property,’ Anna said, dimpling back at him. ‘I could show you—’

  ‘A handkerchief,’ Katie said. ‘Really?’

  ‘Katie was just on her way there. I’ll tag along,’ Max said. ‘But thank you. Everyone has been so helpful.’

  ‘We aim to please,’ Anna said automatically, looking from Katie to Max.

  ‘No chance,’ Katie said, her hand on the door. ‘Staff only. No MOPs.’

  ‘What is this MOP business?’ Max said.

  Katie opened her mouth to tell him not to change the subject but Anna answered him: ‘Member Of Public. MOP.’

  ‘What about “lifer”?’

  Anna frowned. ‘Have you worked in a hotel?’

  Max shook his head. ‘I heard Katie say it.’

  ‘Permanent resident,’ Katie said. ‘Like Hemingway or Fellini.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Anna said. ‘Patrick would love a couple of those but I keep telling him this isn’t London or New York. We don’t get people with that kind of money.’

  ‘Really? This place is pretty swanky.’

  ‘Okay, say you were a millionaire with a yen to live in a hotel, with all the choices you’d have, would you choose this one? In Wiltshire?’

  ‘Fair point but some people want the quiet life.’

  ‘If you want it quiet, you don’t live in a hotel. You live on an island or on your own private estate or something.’

  ‘But there’s quiet and then there’s silent. If you live in a hotel you get to be around people, but not have to interact with them — at least, only on your own terms. You get to be alone but not lonely.’

  ‘You sounded almost wistful then,’ Katie said. She pushed open a door marked ‘private’, then turned to Anna. ‘If I’m not back in five minutes, send out a search party.’

  Anna gave her a thumbs up.

  Katie stepped aside so that Max went in front of her down the short flight of stairs. If you walked in front of people on steps they could push you down them.

  ‘You know, we don’t keep any cash in Lost Property,’ she said, wanting to distract herself from the fact that she was entering an enclosed space with a strange man.

  Max shot a charming smile over his shoulder. ‘Handkerchief, remember?’

  ‘Of great sentimental value,’ Katie said, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

  He nodded. ‘I’m distraught.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Katie said.

  Downstairs, underneath the kitchen and next to the wine rack, was a short, wide corridor.

  One side was completely filled with shelving and boxes.

  Max pulled one out a little way and put his hand inside.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that.’ Katie pointed to the handwritten label on the outside of the box, faded from time and barely legible.

  ‘Teeth? You’re serious?’

  ‘You’d be amazed at the number of people who leave their dentures in their room.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And then there’s the knickers.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Look.’ Katie pulled out a bigger box from further along the row and produced a handful of silk and lace from inside. ‘Women bring their best undies when they visit a hotel. Then they have a night of passion and leave them at the bottom of the bed. Totally forget about them and — bam — they end up in our knicker box.’

  ‘Please tell me you’ve washed those?’

  Katie dropped the crotchless pink thong back into the box. ‘Of course. Well, Housekeeping did. Not me personally.’

  ‘Why do you keep them?’

  ‘In case their owners come to reclaim them. We’re custodians of the lost pants, the dentures, the vibrators—’

  ‘No. Really?’

  Katie nodded.

  ‘Any jewellery?’

  ‘Sure.’ Katie stepped closer and stretched her arm to reach for a shoe box on a high shelf. It was filled with watches. Leather straps, plastic straps, a red Swatch and a huge diver’s watch.

  ‘Why don’t you send these on to the guests? You must have their details.’

  ‘Anything really valuable — like a diamond ring — we do break the pact and contact the MOP, but for everything else...’

  ‘What pact?’

  ‘The pact of “see nothing, hear nothing”. Very important in the hotel trade.’

  ‘Okay,’ Max said, looking confused.

  ‘It breaks the illusion of invisible service if your knickers turn up in the post three days after your holiday. It’s like slapping them in the face with them.’

  ‘Right. Fair enough. But this is worth about three hundred quid.’ He picked up the diver’s watch.

  ‘Really?’ Katie peered at it. ‘It’s fugly.’

  ‘It’s waterproof to two hundred metres, measures depth up to one hundred metres and is made of titanium.’

  ‘Woo-hoo,’ Katie said.

  ‘Ah, come on. It’s shiny.’

  ‘And being more evolved than a kitten that isn’t enough to excite me. Sorry.’

  There was a pause that lengthened past the point of comfort.

  ‘Okay, then. Moving on,’ Katie said, hating the fact that she knew she was blushing.

  Max was standing close. He leaned towards her and, just for a moment, Katie leaned towards him.

  Then she regained her senses and took a step back. ‘You want to look for your handkerchief?’

  ‘My what?’ Max’s voice had gone a bit husky. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Your hankie,’ Katie said. ‘The deeply sentimental one.’

  ‘Right. Is there a box for those?’

  Katie pointed further down the corridor.

  ‘Oh, bugger,’ Katie said, sorting through the shoe box of watches. ‘How am I supposed to know which one is his?’

  ‘You didn’t see him wearing it?’

  ‘I wasn’t looking closely at him, no.’ Katie felt cross. She hadn’t known she was going to be quizzed on Oliver Cole’s accessories. Culpeper’s Herbal had never warned her about that.

 
‘May I?’ Max held out his hand.

  ‘I’m not letting you take Mr Cole’s watch,’ Katie said, gripping the box tightly. ‘I don’t care if you won it.’

  He shook his head. ‘I doubt we’re after the same thing, that’s all. The watch I won was a woman’s one. Diamonds around the outside. Flashy in a mobster’s moll kind of way.’

  ‘So he was gambling with his wife’s watch?’ Maybe that explained why he wanted Katie to find it. Maybe his spirit felt bad about losing his wife’s property.

  ‘You didn’t tell me why you need to find it. You don’t even know what it looks like?’

  ‘No.’ She raked through the box, holding up the Swatch then dropping it back in. ‘I’m an idiot. I’ll just ask his wife. I’ll say he mentioned it was missing — I don’t need to tell her when he told me. Then I’m not lying. Perfect.’

  ‘Perfect if you trust his wife not to pick the Breitling watch and sell it for a tidy profit.’

  ‘Just because that’s what you’d do.’

  ‘In a past life, perhaps,’ Max said. ‘I’m turning over a new leaf.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Katie had the box held against her hip. ‘You done, here?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Max said and they walked back upstairs, into the light.

  Chapter 5

  Cam was working late at the office and Gwen had taken the opportunity to go through all of Iris’s journals. Back when she’d first inherited the house and had been reading the journals for the first time, it had often felt as if they fell open at exactly the place she needed. These days, she practically knew them by heart, but had to go through them in the normal way. Since there wasn’t any kind of index system, that meant the slow way. After hours, in which the heat of the day made her want to put her head on the table and sleep, she wasn’t at all sure the effort had been worth it.

  When Katie arrived, Gwen delayed talking by making smoothies in the blender. As the fruit and ice whizzed noisily and Katie fetched tall glasses and straws, Gwen tried to think of a gentle way of explaining what she’d just read. Katie reached across and switched off the KitchenAid. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not good.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Katie said. ‘I’d rather know.’

  ‘Okay.’ Gwen poured out the smoothies. She added a shot of vodka to her own and offered the bottle to Katie who, as always, shook her head. Outside in the garden, Cat was stalking something in the undergrowth and the scent of lavender hung thickly in the air. The evening sun still had plenty of warmth, but it was gentler than earlier in the day. Gwen sat on her wooden bench, passing one of the cushions to Katie and rearranging another behind her own back.

  Katie was gripping her glass and ignoring her smoothie. Gwen wanted to take away her tension, wanted to comfort her, but when she put her hand on Katie’s arm, she shrugged it off. ‘Please tell me you found something?’

  ‘There was some information on haunting. Apparently, spirits do get trapped sometimes. They’re either attached to a place, or an object, or a person.’

  Katie sat back. ‘Okay. So, Mr Cole is attached to me. I mean, he spoke to me through the magpie, so he’s not stuck at the hotel.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Gwen said.

  ‘So, how do I get rid of him? Not get rid, I mean, help him.’

  ‘There isn’t really anything about that. Iris is very cagey about speaking to the dead. She refers to it twice and both times she says it’s a really bad idea.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Apparently her grandmother could speak to the dead. Sort of.’

  ‘What does “sort of” mean?’

  ‘She touched corpses and knew how they’d died.’

  ‘Like in CSI?’

  Gwen nodded.

  ‘Gruesome power,’ Katie said, but she didn’t look especially shocked. More intrigued. Gwen kept forgetting how strong she was, how motivated. She had to stop thinking of her as a frightened fourteen-year-old. ‘So. What do I do about Mr Cole? Is there any way I can try to talk to him? Instigate contact, kind of thing. I mean, he’s obviously trying to talk to me and if I want the nightmares to stop, maybe I should try harder to listen.’

  That made perfect sense. Gwen felt uneasy about it, but she couldn’t think of any way out of it. Katie was asking for her help. And since she was probably the one who had cursed her with this, she had to get rid of it. Cure Katie. ‘There’s a spell we can try. Like a sort of summoning.’

  ‘Like a séance?’

  ‘I suppose. Iris has put down the bare details but with so little description, it’s clear she didn’t approve.’

  ‘Good thing she’s not here, then,’ Katie said. ‘Can we get on with it?’ She drained her smoothie, making sucking sounds with the straw.

  ‘I thought you’d say that.’ Gwen went back into the house and picked up the first candle to hand. It was a bergamot pillar candle she used in the kitchen to get rid of the smell after cooking curry. Back outside, she put it on the floor in front of the bench and sat cross-legged on the grass. Katie abandoned the bench and sat opposite.

  Gwen lit the candle and reached for Katie’s hands. They were cold and she squeezed them gently.

  Katie looked excited, as if they were having an adventure. ‘What should I be doing?’

  ‘I think we just listen,’ Gwen said. She stared at the candle flame and willed herself to relax.

  ‘Focused or meditative?’ Katie said, after a moment. That girl really had been reading her books.

  ‘Meditative. We need to open a space for Oliver Cole to enter.’

  ‘He’s not entering me, thank you very much,’ Katie said, but then she closed her eyes and went quiet.

  Gwen did the same and, after a while, she felt herself slip into the dream space between waking and sleeping. Instead of a man who might be Katie’s Mr Cole, she saw Katie lying in the hospital bed, aged fourteen and close to death. Gwen opened her eyes. Katie was in front of her. Twenty-one years old. Healthy. Alive.

  Gwen was covered in goose bumps and she squeezed Katie’s hands. ‘Sorry. I can’t.’

  Katie opened her eyes. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, evidently seeing something alarming in Gwen’s expression. ‘I’ll find his watch. I don’t need his help.’ She smiled. ‘I actually met someone else who is looking for it. He seems like the kind of person who gets what he wants. If I stick with him, I bet he’ll lead me to it.’

  ‘He?’ Gwen said. She’d seen the kind of smile Katie was wearing before and knew exactly what it meant. ‘Would this be an attractive kind of “he”, by any chance?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Katie said. ‘But don’t worry, I’m being very sensible.’

  ‘That’s not what worries me.’ Katie was always so cautious. She didn’t trust people easily and was careful of every possible danger. While part of Gwen had welcomed that, knowing that Katie was never going to drink too much or take drugs or get into a car with a drunk driver, another part of her worried that she was never going to live either. That her safe world was going to get smaller and smaller until it comprised her own flat, End House, and that mausoleum of a hotel on the hill. Maybe not even the last one if Mr Cole continued to harass her from beyond the grave.

  Katie drank some smoothie and laid her head on the back of the bench. She stretched into an enormous yawn, one that could rival Cat, and wiped her face. ‘Sorry. Not sleeping well.’

  ‘Take a nap, here,’ Gwen said, taking Katie’s glass and putting it on the ground. She might not be able to solve the restless spirit or possible black magic, but she could feed Katie blitzed fruit and give her a safe place to rest. Sometimes that was all you could do and, sometimes, that was enough.

  *

  Gwen was deep in thought as she walked along the canal path from Pendleford towards Bath. She’d set off early, before six, so that it would be quiet, but there were more dog walkers than she’d anticipated. A man was on top of his canal boat, smoking a cigarette in the dewy morning, and he said ‘good morning’ as she passed.

>   After a couple of miles, the rhythm of walking had quietened her mind and she felt as if she might be able to work when she got home. Gwen wasn’t looking at the scenery, her mind was turned firmly inwards, so she didn’t notice the woman until she was right in front of her. She jumped nimbly from the side of her boat onto the path. ‘Gwen Harper, I presume?’

  The woman had silvery grey hair, and a yellow headscarf tied halfway back on her head, peasant-style. She was wearing dark blue jeans and a padded gilet over a checked shirt. She looked healthy and outdoorsy and looked oddly familiar. ‘Have we met?’ Gwen said, trying to keep her tone polite rather than worried.

  The woman shook her head, holding out a hand. ‘I’m Hannah.’

  Gwen took the proffered hand. It was dry and the skin was a little bit rough, the nails cut square and short. Practical hands. ‘Did you want something?’ It was going to be slightly tiresome if people were going to start accosting her out in the open as well as coming to the back door at all hours of the day. No escape.

  Hannah smiled. ‘Not really. I just thought we should meet. Maybe we can help each other one day.’ She shrugged. ‘You know how these things work. Tea?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Would you like to come in for tea?’ Hannah gestured to the canal boat. It had the word ‘Freedom’ painted on the side in curling blue letters.

  Gwen was torn between a desire to see inside the pretty canal boat and the feeling that getting into a confined space with a complete stranger was the kind of thing she’d warn Katie not to do.

  Hannah narrowed her eyes. ‘I knew Iris, if that helps at all.’

  Gwen thought of Lily, her snake eyes and tiny teeth and the hard glint of insanity. She’d known Iris, too.

  ‘I’m not surprised you don’t trust people, after Lily Thomas.’ Hannah appeared to be a mind reader.

  ‘How do you—?’

  ‘Oh, come on. Did you think the Harpers are the only gifted family in the world? I’m Hannah Ash.’ She waited, as if expecting Gwen to do something. Gasp, maybe.

  Gwen shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t—’

  Hannah whistled. ‘Wow, Iris wasn’t joking when she said she was the loner type. She really never told you about us?’

  Gwen shook her head. ‘I didn’t actually know Iris. My mum and her had a falling out and we moved around a lot and—’