The Case of the Green-Dressed Ghost

by Lucy Banks

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” he laughed. “Girls tend to take one look at me and retch.”

  “I very much doubt that.” Miss Wellbeloved stopped across the road from a steep concrete ramp. “Here we are. Time to get researching, Kester.”

  His eyes followed the line of the ramp to the building above. As indicated, the library was a huge, ugly concrete and glass construction, which Kester thought looked a little bit like a building made of children’s blocks.

  “It’s not a natural beauty, is it?”

  “Ah, never judge a book, or library, by its cover, Kester.” Miss Wellbeloved smiled. “Enjoy your research.”

  Kester said goodbye before he climbed up the steep ramp to the automatic glass doors at the top. He wasn’t expecting much, judging by the exterior. However, to his surprise, the inside was an oasis of calm, pristine white and filled with his favourite thing in the world—books. He felt the tension of the previous night ooze out of his system like resin from a tree and basked in the serenity of the surroundings.

  After enquiring where the local history books were, he made his way up the polished spiral stairs, into a smaller room, lined with shelves of earnest-looking academic texts. Desks ran down the centre of the floor, each filled with a person studiously peering at a computer screen or scribbling away in a notepad. Kester sighed with pleasure. This was his sort of place. He belonged in these types of buildings. In fact, he loved nothing more than breathing in the scent of old literature, thumbing through delicate pages, eyeing rows of antique book-spines and leather-bound covers.

  He sat at the nearest available computer, and started to search online. Coleton Crescent. That’s a good enough place to start. He scanned web page after web page, varying his search every ten minutes or so. “Portraits of ladies in green dresses.” “Local painters.” “Hauntings in Exeter.” Before he knew it, an hour had passed, and the crowds of people around him had started to thin.

  “10 Coleton Crescent.” “Hauntings at 10 Coleton Crescent.” “Exeter ghosts in Coleton Crescent.” “Female ghosts in Exeter.” It was starting to become frustrating. No matter how many pages he trawled through, he couldn’t find anything remotely relating to the case, though he did read through some fascinating tales of hauntings in other parts of the city. It made him wonder how many of them were actually true. Perhaps all of them, he thought with a smile. Perhaps every ghost story ever told is true, and people just don’t know it. Now there’s an alarming idea.

  Suddenly, he had a thought. It struck him with the internal force of a battering ram, and he sat back with a low whistle. “What were those names Pamela mentioned last night, after she’d been in the room with the Green Lady?” he whispered to himself. The girl sitting beside him, a waif with a riot of green dreadlocks and a lip piercing, gave him a wary glance. He tapped his finger against the keyboard, fighting to remember.

  Handsome? Why is the word “handsome” coming to my mind? he thought with frustration. The name had definitely been something like that. In fact, he vaguely remembered the others saying what a strange name it was. He sighed, leaning back and staring at the ceiling for inspiration. For a while none came. Then the name came to him like a thunder bolt.

  “Ransome!” he chorused triumphantly, smacking the table. The girl beside him frowned, edging her chair away. He didn’t care. He’d remembered it: Ransome. Ransome and someone else, but he couldn’t remember the other name at all.

  “Ransome, 10 Coleton Crescent,” he typed into Google. Leaning forward, he scanned the results. “Exeter property prices on Coleton Crescent.” “Exeter memories—Coleton Crescent.” “Coleton Crescent on Streetmap.” Nothing of any real interest. He scanned the second page of results, then the third. Still nothing. Kester felt his excitement begin to dwindle, like smoke escaping from a window.

  However, an entry on the fourth page caught his attention, “Robert Ransome, An Exeter History.”

  “Aha, what’s this?” he whispered. He double-clicked, praying it wouldn’t be another dead end.

  The website looked depressingly dated, with spindly fonts, ancient graphics, and poor layout. Indeed, it looked as though someone had created it a couple of decades ago, then promptly forgotten all about it. Kester felt his heart sink, but ploughed on regardless, speed-reading through the content. It seemed to be a long list of past residents of Coleton Crescent, dating back to the early 1800s. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in alphabetical order.

  Finally, he found the name he’d been looking for. Robert Ransome. Bingo! he thought with glee. He felt like standing up and punching the air like a goal-scoring footballer. Ransome’s address was listed as 10 Coleton Crescent. This could be our man, he realised. It must be. It’s too much of a coincidence for it not to be. The listing was spartan, refusing to give away too much, merely outlining his address, full name, and date of death: 12th of March, 1861.

  So, thought Kester, cracking his knuckles and staring at the screen. The question is—how was he related to the Green Lady?

  He recorded the name of the website on his phone, before going back to Google and trying another search: “Robert Ransome, 10 Coleton Crescent.” As he had anticipated, the first few entries were not related, and the website he’d just been reading was also listed.

  Come on, come on, he silently willed. Give me something fresh, something that I can work with.

  At the bottom of the page, he found another website that looked vaguely interesting. He clicked through, finding details of an out-of-print book, called Devon Painters of the Victorian Period. Kester felt his heart begin to pound, and he readied himself to take more notes. A painter! he thought with excitement. Is Ransome the painter of the portrait?

  After jotting down the book’s details, he searched for it online, praying that someone, somewhere would have a copy. To his surprise, there were a few copies around, mostly in America for some reason, though a couple were in Italy. Rather depressingly, they all cost at least £200 or more. Dr Ribero’s not going to like that, he thought, feeling himself return to earth with a bump. There’s no way his budget will extend to buying a book, when it might not even contain the right information. He puffed out his cheeks, leaning back in the chair once more.

  Gazing round the room for inspiration, his eyes rested on a hunched old woman, diligently feeding books on to the shelf from a mobile trolley. She shuffled along the shelves with the care and effort of a straining tortoise, squinting at each book before rustling it back into position. Seemingly aware of his stare, she turned, catching his eye. Kester smiled, a polite expression that diminished as the old woman ambled over to his computer.

  “Are you alright there, dear?”

  Kester blushed, wishing he’d never turned around. The old woman leaned close to his shoulder, peering at the screen. The muffled odour of peppermint and lavender seeped from her in a pungent cloud, making his eyes water, and he noted that her teeth were disturbingly brown, long and blunt as gravestones. She wore a name tag, which announced that her name was Doris, on her lilac cardigan.

  “Oh, I’m fine, thank you,” he said hastily, feeling somehow embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to call you over.” The green dreadlocked girl sniggered, before burying her head even deeper in the enormous book in front of her.

  “Ah, Devon Painters of the Victorian Period. That’s an interesting book,” Doris commented, poking at the screen.

  “Yes, I suppose it probably is,” Kester replied. “Please, do feel free to continue what you were doing, I don’t want to disturb you.”

  “No, I mean it is an interesting book,” Doris persisted. “It really is.”

  “I’m quite sure you’re right,” he said, fighting to remove his impatience from his voice. His mother had always taught him to be respectful of older people, no matter how deaf, loud, or generally mad they might appear to be.

  She cackled, slapping his back. “You’re not understanding
me,” she said. “I mean it is an interesting book.”

  Oh dear lord, Kester thought, rolling his eyes. I really could do without this at the moment. The girl next to him let out a snort, then turned it into a cough.

  “I can’t say whether it’s interesting or not, because I haven’t read it,” he replied.

  “I’m sure you haven’t, dearie. But I have. That’s what I’m trying to say. It’s a really interesting read. If you like Victorian art.”

  Kester gawped at her. “You mean, you have the book?” Surely not, he thought, examining the woman in more detail. No, he decided. He couldn’t possibly trust her judgement. She looked distinctly short of a few marbles, and couldn’t be a day under eighty. How she was still managing to work was a miracle in itself.

  The lady chuckled, pointing at the shelf. “The library has it. Not me personally. I just work here, love. Anyway, I’ll leave you in peace.”

  “No, no! Don’t go away!” Kester said, pushing his chair out. “Do you really have the book?”

  “Yes, I know we have, because I only read it myself about a year ago. Or was it two years? It could have been three, actually. Time does go very fast these days, and it’s ever so difficult to keep track of things, it really is.”

  “Where is it?” Kester interrupted.

  “Where’s what?” Doris asked, raising her glasses a little higher on to her nose.

  “The book!”

  The old lady laughed, a hoarse, rasping noise that swiftly descended into a fit of inarticulate coughing. “My, my,” she said finally, when she’d hit herself several times on the chest and got her breath back. “You are keen, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Kester confirmed. “Yes, I am. I thought this book would be impossible to get hold of. If you actually have it in this library, I’d love to borrow it.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t be able to get it out, it’s a reference only, my love.”

  Kester sighed. “That’s fine,” he said. “As long as I can look at it, that’s the important thing. Please, would you show me where to find it?”

  “Probably in the art section,” the green dreadlocked girl offered sarcastically, waggling her stubby pencil towards the back of the room.

  “I was about to say that,” Doris interrupted. “It’ll be in local art, dear.”

  Kester gave both of them a grateful smile, before striding down the room. He felt invigorated, filled with momentum, and triumphant at his success so far. See, he thought, side-stepping out of the way of a man walking in the opposite direction. This is what I do. You can keep the ghost hunting. Research is my thing.

  He ran his fingers along the book spines, bumping a path along plastic-wrapped books and hardback monstrosities, which only just fitted on the shelf. Soon, he found what he was looking for, nestled close to the end, next to another book on artists of the region.

  Unable to stop himself from grinning, he tugged it free, cradling it in his arm. It was smaller than he had imagined, more innocuous. Perhaps it will yield nothing at all, he thought, frowning. But on the other hand, perhaps it’ll help solve this mystery.

  He rifled to the index. There it was: Ransome, Robert. Page 182. His heart quickened as he skimmed back through the brittle pages. Expecting to see the portrait of the Green Lady herself, he was mildly disappointed to see only three of Ransome’s paintings printed in the book, and all were rather tedious landscapes. He began to read.

  Robert Ransome, born 15th April, 1819 in Exeter, was perhaps best known for his landscape compositions of the local area. In particular, Ransome focused on the scenic tors of Dartmoor, and the woodlands close to his native Exeter. Ransome received an education in the Classical Arts and, almost immediately, began to make a successful career of his work.

  His most celebrated work, Haytor by Twilight, was exhibited in the Devon County Museum in 1845, shortly after his return from Italy. Ransome had resided by Lake Garda for four years, before returning to Exeter to marry his childhood sweetheart, Miss Constance Pettifer. Regrettably, Ransome’s life was cut prematurely short in 1861, by an unidentified illness.

  Constance! Kester thought with triumph, slamming the book shut. That was the other name that Pamela mentioned the other night at the house! Ransome and Constance! He now felt convinced that Robert Ransome was their man. Could the portrait of the Green Lady be the ghost of Constance, mourning her husband? There had to be a connection.

  He looked at his watch. It was close to five in the evening, and he knew Pamela would be heading home soon. However, he felt that he’d found out a lot of information in a short space of time. He couldn’t wait to relay it to the others.

  Chapter 12: Coming to the Rescue

  The following day, he and Pamela arrived at the office early in a state of excitement. After he’d left the library the previous evening, he’d outlined his findings to Pamela whilst driving home, who had shown so much enthusiasm she’d nearly driven the car off the road. He’d been up most of the night, planning out how to tell the others, and he was greatly looking forward to seeing their faces, especially Serena’s. That’ll show her, he thought with a gleeful rub of the hands as they bounded breathlessly up the stairs. Time to prove I can do something right, after all.

  However, as he entered the office, the expression on Miss Wellbeloved’s face stopped him in his tracks. Her bony features, normally severe and carefully composed, looked somehow out of shape, and there was a puffiness to her eyes that suggested she might even have been crying. Kester stared gormlessly open-mouthed, the wind blown entirely out of his sails.

  “Is everything alright?” he said, blinking in confusion.

  “Nope, it’s definitely not alright,” Serena barked. She was slumped over her keyboard, her head propped in her hands like a wilted flower. “We’ve had some really bad news.”

  Pamela stepped forward, ushering Kester to one side. “Not the Bournemouth case?” she asked. Miss Wellbeloved nodded.

  “That bastard Higgins got it,” Mike piped up from the corner.

  “No!” Pamela squeaked. “You’re joking me? Larry Higgins got it instead?”

  Mike shook his head, flicking a balled up piece of scrap-paper on to the floor. “I kid you not,” he said. “Julio’s been ranting and raving about it since he got in, and now he’s stormed off into his office.”

  “It’s really bad news for the agency,” Miss Wellbeloved said. “We needed this contract. Badly.”

  “I just can’t believe that pompous git got it over us!” Mike said, thumping his fist on the desk. “Higgins doesn’t know his arse from his elbow! He’s a bloody accountant, for god’s sake!”

  “He’s an ex-accountant, to be fair,” Miss Wellbeloved said. “And he’s always worked within the supernatural field.”

  “Yeah, doing the financial side of things, which makes him an accountant,” Pamela clarified.

  “A fat moron, with zero expert knowledge of the supernatural, that’s what he is,” Mike thundered. “He’s blagging it, that’s what he’s doing. He’ll totally mess this project up, and then the government will have to think twice about hiring him.”

  “Yeah, we may only have basic equipment, but at least we know what the hell we’re doing,” Serena added.

  “I very much doubt he’ll mess the project up,” Miss Wellbeloved said, sitting down. “Larry Higgins and his team are doing very well at the moment, as you all know.”

  “Why is it such bad news?” Kester asked, edging forward. “Aren’t there other contracts?”

  Mike leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. “We worked on the bid for this one for ages. We thought we were going to get it, to be honest. It’s in our area, after all. It’s a great project—a poltergeist in a Bournemouth arcade. Causing right panic, it is. Would have been a lovely, easy one to do. But that git has got it instead.”

  “Despite the fact he’s up in E
ssex and shouldn’t be bidding for work down here anyway,” Serena concluded.

  “That’s what they’re all like though, in the southeast, isn’t it?” Mike said ominously. “Greedy, money-seeking bastards. It’s all about the cash, nothing about the expertise. Honestly, if I had Higgins in front of me now, I’d bloody—”

  “Mike, that’s enough,” Miss Wellbeloved snapped. “You wouldn’t do anything to Larry Higgins, because he’s perfectly within his rights to bid on the project. He won it, fair and square. Aiming your anger at him isn’t going to change the situation.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kester said, following Pamela to her desk. “You bid on jobs then? How does it work?”

  Pamela sat down, gesturing at Kester to perch on the edge of her desk. “All supernatural incidences are recorded on the government website.”

  Kester laughed. “Hang on a minute,” he said, “that can’t be right. Anyone can look at the government website.”

  “It’s an Swww.co.uk address!” Serena shouted from the other side of the room. “Don’t you remember anything?”

  “It’s a special website address,” Pamela clarified. “It can only be accessed by approved people; namely people like us.”

  “So they post jobs on their site, and you bid on them, is that right?” Kester was bewildered. It all sounded very mundane and business-like, which was rather at odds with his preconceived notions of the supernatural.

  “Basically, yes. They’ll have regional jobs, national jobs; that type of thing.”

  Ribero’s office door swung open with a bang and startled them all. Dr Ribero stood, framed by the doorway, shaking his hands to the ceiling, as though personally offended by the wooden beams and plaster.

  “Ah, it could not be worse!” he announced. “This is surely our ruin! How can we keep running like this, eh? We are only winning small contracts. We need the big jobs, otherwise we will go under, yes?”