by Robin Jarvis
At four o'clock, a morose jingling announced Austen Pickering's return and Neil ran to the entrance to admit him. Three large, much-battered suitcases surrounded the grizzle-haired man as he waited upon the steps, and he grumbled to Neil about the exorbitant cost of cabs in London, whilst the boy helped him to haul the luggage inside.
'You've certainly brought enough!' Neil exclaimed. 'What sort of equipment have you got in here?'
'That witch of a landlady told me to sling my hook! Got a terrible tongue on her, that cat has,' the man puffed, dragging a heavy portmanteau under the sculpted archway. 'She's chucked me out—this is everything I had with me. You know, lad, it's the living what scare me most. The dead I can deal with.'
Neil contemplated the suitcases thoughtfully. 'So, you're staying here then?'
'Makes sense really,' the ghost hunter replied. 'I'd have to be spending the nights here anyway, so I might as well stop. No point shelling out for a new room when I won't even be there. The Websters won't mind, I'm sure.'
But Neil was not thinking about them; he was wondering what his father would have to say.
'You know,' Mr Pickering reflected, 'I'm sure that nosy woman had been furtling through my stuff. She'd best not have messed with any of my apparatus. It's already getting dark and I want to get started straight away.'
When Brian Chapman returned to the museum he discovered, to his consternation, that Austen Pickering had taken over one corner of The Fossil Room and was busily setting up his equipment in the rest of the available space. Several of the connecting rooms also contained one or two experiments; lengths of string were fixed across windows and doorways, and a dusting of flour was sprinkled over certain areas of the floor.
Neil's father regarded the man with irritation. He had certainly made himself at home. His mackintosh was hanging from a segment of vertebrae jutting conveniently from a fine example of an ichthyosaur skeleton set into the far wall. His highly-polished brogues had been placed neatly beneath a cabinet and his feet were now cosily snug in a pair of slippers.
That disease-ridden raven was playing in one of the cases, tugging at a spare pair of braces he had unearthed amongst a pile of vests, and the newcomer himself was talking to his sons about haunted houses.
'Blood and sand!' Brian mumbled. 'It's one thing after another in here.'
There was, of course, nothing he could do about it. If his eccentric employers wanted to have seances, then it was up to them, but he wasn't going to permit Josh to remain and listen to this nonsense.
Brian had spent the afternoon trawling the local markets and public houses, asking after casual work, and had eventually ended up in the job centre. His searches had not been successful, but he had brought a bundle of newspapers and leaflets home with him. Leaving the ghost hunter to his own business, he returned to the caretaker's apartment, with his four-year-old son trailing reluctantly behind.
Neil heaved a sigh of relief. For a moment he had thought his father would demand that he join them, but Mr Chapman's mood had mellowed in the time he had been out and he was obviously too anxious to hunt through the papers to begin an argument.
'Doesn't say much, your dad,' Austen Pickering commented. 'Now, where did I pack my pullover? Be draughty in here tonight—already turned a mite chilly.'
Neil glanced at him. The old man was busy putting new batteries inside an old tape recorder and the boy cast his eyes over the apparatus he had arranged on the glass surface of the display cabinets.
The ghost hunter's paraphernalia was disappointingly mundane. Neil had envisaged sophisticated electronic gadgets which bleeped and flashed at a phantom's approach. But the most advanced piece of technology was an ordinary camera, loaded with infra-red film.
As far as he could see, coupled with the tape recorder, that was as far as scientific instruments had progressed with regard to studying spectres. The rest of the 'equipment' was hardly impressive. There was a flashlight, at least a dozen balls of twine, a carrier bag filled with candles, several thermometers, a tape measure and a packet of chalks. The familiar notebook had joined forces with a clipboard, a bag of flour and a small, brown glass bottle.
'Smelling salts,' Mr Pickering explained, seeing the boy's curious expression. 'It has been known for people to swoon with fright when they come into contact with the spirit world. Always pays to be prepared.'
Neil began to suspect that the old man had never actually seen anything ghostly at all before, and that the smelling salts were for himself. Perhaps he was just a harmless crank who had let his hobby turn into an obsession. At the moment, anyone looking at him could mistake Mr Pickering for a lonely old pensioner settling himself down for a quiet night in front of his stamp collection, rather than preparing to see in the early hours, keeping watch for the supernatural.
'Do you think you'll see anything?' Neil asked.
The old man peered at him over his spectacles. 'Who can tell?' he answered. ‘I might be here a week before I hear so much as a creaking floorboard.'
Neil groaned inwardly and realised how much he had been looking forward to what might never materialise.
'Then again,' the old man added, 'there's so much bottled up in here, I think it'll be more a case of what won't I see. Soon as I tweak the cork that's holding it all in place, just stand back is all I'll say'
Neil brightened up—perhaps he wasn't a fraud after all.
'You wouldn't believe some of the things I've seen,' the ghost hunter continued. 'Misty shapes drifting over the ground, blurred figures melting into walls—investigated the lot, I have.'
'What was the most frightening?' Neil asked ghoulishly.
Mr Pickering reached into a case for his pullover. 'The dead can't hurt the living,' he declared, his voice a little muffled as he dragged the olive green woolly over his head. 'Like I said, all I want to do is help them and see that they pass over. Besides, I've got the most powerful defence I could wish for.'
From another case he brought out a small, black-bound book, the pages of which were gilded about the edge, and he brandished it with great solemnity. 'My Bible!' he proclaimed. 'That's the first and most important safeguard. There's no harm can come with this as protection.'
The evening was closing in. Darkness pressed against the blank windows of The Wyrd Museum and the old man moved through the rooms, measuring distances and drawing diagrams of the layout in his notebook.
'Would your dad mind if I filled my thermos with hot water?' he asked. 'Three large mugs of strong black coffee should see me through and stave off the drowse.'
Neil thought that if his father was still in his relatively good humour then there was no harm in trying, and so he led the old man to their apartment.
Brian Chapman was sitting at the small table, surrounded by a sea of open newspapers. Josh had been put to bed and the caretaker scowled at the interruption when the door opened.
'What is it?' he snapped.
Neil guessed correctly that his father's job hunting was proving more difficult than he had anticipated and was glad that he had not brought Quoth along also.
‘I said Mr Pickering could have some hot water for his flask.'
His father grunted and irritably flapped the paper he was reading. 'You know where the kettle is.'
'This way,' the boy began.
Austen Pickering followed him inside the apartment, then drew a sharp, astonished breath. 'Tremendous!' he exclaimed, blowing upon his hands and shivering uncontrollably.
'What's the matter with him?' Brian asked.
'Can't you feel it?' the old man cried.
Neil shook his head, but glanced warily at his father.
'It's freezing in here!' the ghost hunter declared. 'This room is a definite cold spot. Something quite dreadful must have happened here in the past. Let me get my thermometer—I must see if it registers.'
Brian Chapman rose from the chair and slammed the newspaper upon the table. 'That's it!' he snapped. 'You and your crackpot notions can get out of here. For G
od's sake, I've got a four-year-old boy trying to sleep in the next room. I don't want him scared by this mumbo-jumbo claptrap. Go on—I said leave!'
Still shivering, a crestfallen Austen Pickering looked away, embarrassed. ‘I didn't mean to alarm you,' he uttered. ‘I sometimes get carried away. I'm sorry, I'll get back to The Fossil Room. It doesn't matter about the hot water.'
'Oh well done, Dad,' Neil shouted when the old man had departed. 'There was no need to be so nasty. He isn't doing any harm.'
The boy's father sat down once more and rested his head in his hands. 'I've had it up to here for today,' he groaned. 'On top of everything else, I don't want a loser like him telling me that this flat is haunted.'
'This place must be a magnet for losers, then,' Neil snapped, heading for the door.
'Where do you think you're going?'
'To apologise! Though I don't see why I should—but I know you wouldn't dream of it.'
Neil slammed the door behind him and, with a yell of frustration, Brian Chapman threw the newspapers across the room.
In The Fossil Room, Neil found Austen Pickering sorting through the many candles he had brought with him, whilst Quoth nibbled at the wax and pecked at the tantalising, worm-like wicks.
'Sorry about Dad,' Neil said. 'He's been a complete pain lately'
The old man brushed the incident aside. 'I told you some people don't like what I do,' he reminded the boy. 'I'm used to it by now. A solitary vocation, that's what this is.'
'I could go back and fill your thermos for you.'
'Don't trouble yourself,' Mr Pickering replied, walking over to where his mackintosh hung and pulling a silver hip flask from one of the pockets. 'A nip of brandy will do just as well. I said I was prepared.'
Gathering up a handful of candles, he placed one in each corner of the room then threw Neil a cigarette lighter. 'If you could set those going for me, I'll just put two more in the centre here and jot down the direction of the draughts.'
In the bright glare of die electric lights, the candle flames looked cold and pale. Quoth amused himself by dancing around trying to blow them out—until Neil saw what he was doing and scolded him.
'There.' The ghost hunter finally nodded with satisfaction. 'Now, if you could flick the switch, lad.'
Neil obeyed and the room was immediately engulfed in shadows which leaped about the walls. The huge black bones of the fossils appeared to twitch as great hollows of darkness yawned between the massive ribs, and prehistoric nightmares flew through the night above their heads.
Beneath them, however, the six cheery candle flames were reflected in the glass of the cabinets, and the cases which contained mineral samples glinted and winked as the faceted crystals and pyrites threw back the trembling fires.
'Such glistering gaudery!' Quoth cawed, hopping across to spread his wings and let the shimmering light play over his ragged feathers. 'Fie, how this sorry vagabond doth put the lustrous Phoenix to shame.'
Neil grinned but Austen Pickering was already heading towards the next room. 'Much more conducive,' the ghost hunter remarked. 'This kind of investigation always works better in the soft glow of candles. All to do with light waves and atmospheric vibrations—electricity is a terrible obstacle for some of the weaker souls of the departed, you know.'
The boy followed him and, dragging himself away from the sparkling cabinets, Quoth came waddling after.
'Put the rest in the other galleries, I think,' Mr Pickering decided, handing Neil a dozen more candles. 'Then I'll settle down and wait. I've got high hopes for this night. Once the usual noises of an old building settling on to its foundations have subsided, who knows? Perhaps there'll even be a manifestation. I've never been so excited, not even in the Wigan case.'
'What was that about?' Neil asked.
The old man set another candle down and marked its position in his notebook. 'Up till now it was my most rewarding investigation,' he announced, 'and an object lesson which proves that not all hauntings occur in churchyards or ancient buildings. Just an ordinary semi that a young family had moved into. Wasn't long before they noticed strange things were happening—so I was called in.'
Wandering into another room he paused and lit another candle before continuing. 'Five nights I was there till the poor soul made his appearance,' he chuckled. 'Except for the baby, we were all downstairs and I was beginning to wonder if the young couple had imagined it all. But sometimes the departed don't want to let go of their ties with this world, and they can get a bit wily. That's what was happening there. The old chap who'd lived there originally didn't want to leave and was hiding from me. If it wasn't for modern technology, I might still be there trying to find him.'
'How do you mean?' Neil broke in. 'Did the ghost show up on one of your photographs?'
The old man laughed. 'Nothing like that,' he chuckled. 'No, as I said, we were all downstairs when, over the baby monitor, comes a voice. He was up there in the nursery, talking to the littl'un in her cot!'
'That's well creepy.'
'Oh, he didn't want to hurt her,' Mr Pickering asserted. 'Just sad and lonely, that's all. People don't change just because they die, you know. He was a kindly soul, was old Cyril.'
'What about those who were nasty when they were alive?'
'Luckily, there's more good in the world than television would have us believe,' the ghost hunter replied.
In each of the ground floor rooms they had placed four candles, and the winding, connecting corridor was lit with another fifteen at five-metre intervals. All the electric lights were switched off, and now only those small flames pricked and illuminated the momentous dark.
When they reached the main hallway, where the stairs rose into the impenetrable, prevailing blackness of the upper storeys, the old man clicked his fingers in the manner which Neil already recognised as the sign that he was marshalling his thoughts.
'There,' he muttered, gazing back at the glimmering trail they had left behind. 'I'm ready. I propose to begin here and work my way back to The Fossil Room. Thanks for your help, lad.'
The boy smiled at him. The lenses of the ghost hunter's spectacles mirrored the candle which the man held in his hand and two squares of bright yellow flame shone out from his lined face. Yet behind those reflections, Mr Pickering's eyes burned just as keenly. Neil wished that he could stay and see what would happen, but he sensed that tonight the eager newcomer would rather work alone.
'Good luck,' he said.
Mr Pickering raised his hand in a slight wave, then took a deep breath to prepare himself.
'Come on, you,' Neil told Quoth, lifting the bird on to his shoulder. 'Let's see if I can sneak you past Dad.'
Walking through the collections, the boy looked back to catch a last glimpse of the ghost hunter, cocooned in a golden, glowing aura, the cavernous night dwarfing and besieging his stout form as he began his lonely vigil.
'Hope he finds what he came for,' Neil said. 'This place could do with a psychic spring-clean.'
In the entrance hall, Austen Pickering took out his Bible and held it tightly as he lowered his eyes and murmured a heartfelt prayer. The candle in his other hand fizzed and crackled as particles of The Wyrd Museum's ever-present floating dust drifted into the heat and, presently, the man lifted his head. He was ready.
'I know you can hear me,' the ghost hunter called in a firm but friendly voice. 'I don't want to frighten any of you—there's nothing to be afraid of. My name's Austen. I'm here to help. Now is the time you have waited for. Listen to me—I can feel your torment. Don't let this place keep you any longer. Come forward, I beseech you. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, I call you to me.'
The pensioner's words echoed through the hall and out into the collections. Passing through The Roman Gallery, Neil and Quoth heard his compassionate appeals, the sonorous tones ringing through the still emptiness of the vacillating dark that surrounded them.
'Make yourselves known to me. Let me guide you to the peace you have
been denied.'
Quoth's single eye gleamed small and sharp in the shadows as he cocked his head to listen, and Neil felt a sudden tremor of apprehension judder through the raven's body.
'Is something the matter?' the boy asked.
'Yea,' Quoth answered in a hoarse whisper which was filled with dread. 'The lumpen one knows not what is moving. From the Stygian mirk it cometh. Mine very quills doth rise at its approach. Tarry no longer, Master Neil. To thy father and the light we must away and flee this ray-chidden dankness.'
'There's nothing to be scared of.'
Yet the urge to leave that place was mounting within the boy too, and he quickened his pace. About the walls, the shadows of the countless terracotta pots and jars which crammed the shelves seemed to move independently of the candle flames. Neil forced himself not to look at them, for it was easy to see any number of imagined horrors in that crowding dark.
'I should have taken the quick way through the corridor,' he muttered.
'Come to me!' he could hear the ghost hunter calling. 'Show yourselves!'
Quoth let out a bleating yelp and clung tightly to his master's shoulder. 'Canst thou not sense the terror?' he wailed. 'The wall of night doth quake and crack. Make haste afore the barricade is riven!'
Into The Neolithic Collection Neil hurried, running past the cases which housed fragments of Stone Age skulls and avoiding the gaze of reconstructed Neanderthals.
'Squire Neil!' the raven yammered, glancing behind them. 'Behold the flames!'
Whirling around, the boy saw that the candles in the rooms they had passed through were guttering.
'Lo!' Quoth uttered miserably. 'The nocturn breath of the unquiet dead doth blow upon them.'
As though caught in a gusting draught, the small flames sputtered. To his dismay, Neil saw in the distance an engulfing darkness creep closer as, one by one, the candles were extinguished.
'Midnight as an ice lord's gullet,' the raven cawed.
