“I’ve been telling my patrons all about you,” he said defensively. “The three best professional ghost hunters in the game today, come all the way up here from London, to help put things right here. That’s why the place is so full tonight.”
“Like when the BBC filmed Songs of Praise in the local church,” said Cootes. “You couldn’t move in the pews for new frocks and big hats. Vicar hadn’t seen a congregation that big in years. Got stage-fright in the pulpit, and the verger had to take over.”
“If you’re the Ghostly Busters,” said Jasmine, “shouldn’t you be wearing those big nuclear packs on your backs?”
“You’re thinking of the other guys,” Melody said coldly. “We’re professionals. They’re fictional.”
“Even so,” said Troughton, “don’t you have hawthorn and garlic, crosses and holy water; all that stuff?”
“That’s for vampires,” said JC. “We don’t do vampires. That’s another department. We’re here to investigate the situation and see what needs doing. If anything does.”
“But where are your cameras?” Jasmine said doggedly. “I had my hair done specially for the cameras!”
“What cameras?” said Happy.
“For the television programme!” said Cootes. “For the show! You’re here to make a show about the King’s Arms and its ghosts, aren’t you? Like Mostly Haunted?”
JC looked at Brook, who flinched, then shrugged. “I had to explain it to them in terms they would understand, Mr. Chance.”
“Which of you is the psychic?” said Troughton. He grinned at Melody. “She looks like she could get inside a man’s head.”
“Ms. Chambers is our scientific expert,” said JC. “Mr. Palmer here is our resident psychic.”
Everyone in the main bar immediately turned their gaze on Happy. He wasn’t pleased about that but did his best to bear up under the close inspection. The most common reaction in the crowd was disappointment, in that Happy appeared so ordinary and unprepossessing. They’d clearly been hoping for someone a bit more. . exotic. They couldn’t see Happy doing the whole rolling-on-the-floor and speaking-in-tongues bit.
“All right then,” said Cootes, leaning forward on his chair to fix Happy with a challenging stare. “Show us something. Go on.”
“Oh, this can only go well,” murmured Melody.
Happy looked straight back at Cootes, his face surprisingly calm and composed. “I don’t do party tricks. Neither am I a performing dog.”
“Thought so,” Cootes said loudly, looking about him triumphantly. “Fake. They fake it all, for the television.”
“We are not part of any television show,” said Happy.
“Fake, fake, fake,” said Cootes, grinning broadly.
“All right,” said Happy.
“Oh dear,” said JC, quietly.
Happy looked thoughtfully at Cootes. “You want me to tell everyone here something about you? Something only you would know?”
“Give it your best shot,” said Cootes, openly defying him.
“You watch a lot of porn, last thing at night,” said Happy.
Cootes stiffened in his chair. “You’re guessing. You could say that about anyone.”
“But you do it while wearing your mother’s dress,” said Happy.
Cootes’s jaw dropped, and his eyes widened. And in the time it took him to work out a convincing denial, the moment passed. Everyone in the bar erupted with laughter, seeing the truth in his face. Cootes looked like he wanted to get up and leave, but he was trapped in the middle of the crowd. So he buried his face in his glass and ignored everyone. JC took the opportunity to call for a round for everyone. To make up for not being television people and, hopefully, to loosen them up enough to get them talking. Everyone crushed up before the bar, happy at the prospect of a free drink. A little later, while they were all settling down again, JC got Brook to himself, for a moment.
“Why are you working alone tonight?” said JC, bluntly. “You must have known there was going to be a crowd in. Where’s the rest of your staff?”
“There’s no-one but me,” Brook said quietly. “Can’t keep staff. Not here. I advertise in all the local papers, offer really good wages, hoping to bring people in from outside who don’t know the stories. . but I can’t get anyone to stay for long. Not once things start happening. Even the local trade’s dropping off even though the townspeople have been coming here for generations. Point of pride, that they aren’t afraid of no ghosts. But there’s only a crowd in here tonight because there’s safety in numbers. And even the regulars won’t stay too late. They don’t like to go home in the dark. .”
He moved quickly away and called for his patrons’ attention. They all quietened down, quickly enough. They seemed a good-natured crowd.
“These ghost hunters are here because the King’s Arms is justly famous for its many ghost stories,” said Brook. “But recently, I think it’s fair to say that things have been getting out of hand. I’ve been having trouble coping; you all know that. .”
“What ghost stories?” said JC, cutting in quickly when it became clear Brook was having trouble getting the words out. “Are we talking actual hauntings? Has anyone here actually seen a ghost? Personally?”
It all went very quiet. Everyone looked at everyone else, clearly waiting for someone else to start. In the end, Troughton sat up straight and nodded firmly to JC.
“You sit yourselves down, ghost hunters, and we’ll tell you all about it. I’ll start.”
JC and Happy and Melody pulled three chairs into position facing the crowd and sat down. There were definite signs of anticipation in the regulars’ faces now. They all wanted to tell their stories. They needed someone else to take the plunge first. They’d been hoping to do it for the television cameras; but really, any audience would do. Someone new to tell the old, old stories to. Brook shut off the bar’s piped background music, and a sudden hush fell across the bar. There was a pause, and Troughton leaned forward.
“I suppose one of the best-known ghost stories features the serving maid from the old Manor House. Must be over two hundred years old, this story, but everyone here knows it. She hanged herself, poor thing. Right here, in this pub, in one of the upstairs rooms. Because the Squire’s wicked son, he had his way with her, then wanted nothing to do with her once her belly began to swell. She went to the old Squire, told him what had happened, told him she was in the family way, by his son. He had her whipped for lying and thrown out. She was ashamed to tell her own family after that, so she did away with herself. Upstairs. . Some say she can still be seen, hanging, in the room where she did it. And even when you can’t see her, on some nights you can hear the quiet rasp of the noose creaking as she swings slowly back and forth. Forever. .”
Men and women were nodding in agreement all through the crowd. They’d all heard the story. And once Troughton had started the ball rolling, there was no stopping them. They all had tales to tell. An old woman in a long, grubby coat was next up.
“I am Mrs. Ida Waverly,” she said, in a surprisingly strong and steady voice. “And this story was told to me by my mother, who heard it from her mother. Who was a cleaner at this very inn, back in the day. There is a stain on the old stone path outside. The one that leads right across the car park though the path was there first. It’s an old blood-stain, been there for centuries. No-one knows why any more.
“Not even the most modern cleaning fluids can shift it, or make any impression on it. And they’ve tried everything; down the years. It’s not always there, mind; that’s how you know it’s a ghostly stain. But many have seen it, right enough. When it is there, the stain is always bright red, not dark. Because the blood never dries. And it is said. . some people, if they touch the old blood-stain, their fingers come away wet and dripping with fresh blood. And then it’s a sign. . that those people are not long for this world.”
More general nodding and murmuring in agreement. Names were quietly bandied back and forth in the bar, of people who’d see
n the blood-stain and come to bad ends. Melody turned in her chair to look at the main entrance, clearly considering going outside for a look herself.
“I wouldn’t, me dear,” said Mrs. Waverly. “You couldn’t expect to see it in the dark and in the rain.”
Melody settled reluctantly back in her chair, and the stories continued.
“There’s this Grandfather Clock,” said a tall, thin, young man. His long hair hung down in carefully cultivated dreadlocks, his clothes were shabby but clean, and he looked very solemn. “That clock, that one over there in the corner, that’s been here in this pub for many a year. And I heard from my dad, as he heard it from his dad before him, of people who’ve been right here in this bar when that clock struck thirteen.”
Everyone looked at the Grandfather Clock. JC had to turn right around in his chair to get a good look at it. It was an old, perfectly ordinary-looking Grandfather Clock, in a polished wooden case, with a big glass panel in the front to show the heavy brass pendulum as it swung slowly back and forth. In the hush, they could all hear the slow, steady tick of the clock’s mechanism. It didn’t chime.
“I’ve never heard the clock chime thirteen myself,” said the shabby young man. He sounded a bit disappointed. “But my dad said, if it does, it’s a sign that someone present in the bar is about to die. .”
“And then there’s Johnny Lee,” said a smart, middle-aged lady in a tweed suit and pearls, with dark, lacquered hair. “My Uncle Jack said he saw him, right here in this very bar, right after the end of the war. Autumn of 1945, it was. No-one here had seen Johnny since he went off to fight, at the beginning of 1940. He walked in here, calm and easy as you please, nodded and smiled to one and all, and ordered a pint of bitter. Of course, everyone was pleased to see him back, especially as there’d been no word to expect him. But he said it was such a shame about his young niece Alice, losing her gold watch that her grandmother had left her. Meant the world to young Alice, did that watch. And Johnny said that if young Alice would look behind the old dresser, in the back bedroom, she’d find the watch, right enough. And then Johnny smiled and walked out, leaving his drink on the bar, untouched. And when the people went outside to look, there was no sign of him anywhere.
“Wasn’t till a fortnight later that his family got the telegram. Telling them that Johnny wouldn’t be coming home. But Alice found the watch, right where her Uncle Johnny said it would be.”
JC smiled and nodded, and the crowd made pleased noises; but JC knew better. He’d heard these stories before, or stories very like them. They were traditional ghost stories, of the kind told in pubs and local gatherings the world over. The names and the details changed, but the stories stayed the same. Which suggested that possibly the King’s Arms wasn’t actually haunted at all. By anything other than old stories, handed down from generation to generation. He leaned over to talk quietly with Brook.
“Did you see this Johnny Lee yourself, by any chance?”
“Long before my time,” said Brook. “And I have to say, if all the people who said they were there were actually there, the bar would have been packed from wall to wall and bursting at the seams.”
“I have a story,” said Cootes, his voice loud and defiant. “The story goes that this young woman was travelling late at night and had to stop unexpectedly because the weather was so bad. Much like tonight. Luckily, there was an inn nearby, off the beaten track. Even more luckily, they had one room left vacant. The young lady didn’t know the inn and thought it a rather rough-and-ready place, but it wasn’t like she had a choice. So she allowed the innkeeper to show her to her room. Once inside, she made a point of locking and bolting her door and even jamming a chair up against it. And that was when a voice behind her said, ‘Well, no-one’s going to disturb us now, are they?’”
There was general laughter. Cootes smiled happily about him. It was clearly as much a shaggy-dog tale as a ghost story, and no-one in the bar took it seriously. But JC saw something in Brook’s face, briefly, that made him think there might be something to this particular story, after all. He stood up, to draw everyone’s attention back to him.
“Tell me,” he said to the crowd. “Have there ever been any great tragedies here? Not in the pub but in the town, or even the general area? Any really bad accidents, or fires, any mass deaths? Anything like that?”
He hadn’t even finished his question before everyone started shaking their heads. Brook leaned forward, resting his forearms on the bar-counter.
“Nothing. Nothing at all like that. I did some digging in the local library; and Bishop’s Fording has been a quiet and peaceful place for generations.”
“Then why are there so many ghost stories associated with this inn?” said Melody.
Again, a great many heads were shaking. Brook shrugged, almost helplessly.
“Have you ever considered having the inn exorcised?” JC said to Brook.
“It’s been tried!” said Brook. “Three times in the last forty years, to my certain knowledge. Every time the town gets a new priest, and they hear the stories, they can’t wait to take on the infamous King’s Arms. Things go quiet for a while, then they start up again. I think. . it’s because what’s here, whatever it is that’s here, is older than the Church.”
The crowd had nothing to say about that. Judging by their faces, it wasn’t anything they wanted to talk about.
“Whatever’s here,” said Cootes, looking challengingly at the three Ghost Finders, “it’s best not to upset it.”
“Hell with that!” JC said immediately. He glared around the bar and raised a dramatic voice. “To whomever or whatever troubles this place, hear my words! Be advised! This place, and these people, are under my protection and that of the Carnacki Institute! Behave yourself or else.”
He looked around him, but there was no response. Everyone in the crowd was very still. They looked tense, braced for. . something. But nothing happened. They could all hear the wind outside and the rain dashing against the windows; but that was all. JC sat down again and gave the crowd his best reassuring grin.
“You have to stand up for yourself. Ghosts should know their place. You’ve told me the old traditional stories. Now tell me things you’ve seen and heard for yourselves. Don’t be afraid. I’m here to listen, and to help.”
“Sometimes,” said Jasmine, quietly, “sometimes, at night, if you’re the last to leave here. . You look back, and the pub isn’t as it should be. There are lights on, in the upper rooms, where nobody goes. And you can see shadows, human shapes, standing before the lit windows, looking out. Or moving slowly back and forth, like people coming and going. Except they’re not people.”
“I never turn the upstairs lights on,” said Brook. “Never anyone staying there. .”
“I know,” said Jasmine, helplessly. She looked at her hands, clasped tightly together in her lap. She looked like she wanted to cry.
“Sometimes,” said the old farmer Troughton, “there’s a large oak tree standing in the field outside. Only mostly there isn’t.”
“And sometimes,” said Brook, “when I’m in here on my own, I can feel someone following me around. Standing behind me. I never see or hear anything, but I know. Sometimes I hear footsteps upstairs, but when I go up and look, there’s never anyone there. And I try not to look in any of the bar’s mirrors because sometimes when I look I see someone standing behind me, in the reflection.”
The crowd was looking very unhappy now. Shifting in their seats, looking at each other for support and comfort. It was one thing to tell stories out of the past; no-one wanted to contemplate their moving into the present.
“Well, Brook,” JC said loudly, “I hope you won’t be putting any of us in the room where the servant maid hanged herself.”
And it all went very quiet. The crowd looked at each other. Finally, Troughton cleared his throat.
“You’re not thinking of actually staying the night here, in the King’s Arms? Are you? No-one ever stays the night here.”
> “Why not?” said Happy.
“Because the charges here are terrible!” said Cootes.
There was an outburst of laughter at that; but the mood had changed. People were shifting uncomfortably and glancing at their watches, looking around for their coats and belongings. And then Jasmine jumped to her feet and pointed at a window with a quivering hand. Her face was shocked white, her eyes stretched wide. Everyone looked at her.
“What’s the matter with you, girl?” said Troughton.
“There was a face!” Jasmine said shrilly. “At the window!”
Everyone was on their feet at once, looking where she pointed; but there was no face to be seen at any of the windows, only the dark of the night, and rain running down the leaded glass. But the damage had been done. There was an awful lot of ostentatiously looking at watches, and saying Is that the time? I really must be going. People hurried to pull on their coats and headed for the door. Got to be going before the storm gets too bad. Or the road gets flooded. Have to make an early start in the morning. . JC raised his voice, trying to reach them, to calm them down, but they were already pushing and shoving at each other as they ran for the door, streaming past JC and Happy and Melody as though they weren’t even there. The bar emptied in a few moments, the last few actually fighting each other in their need to get through the only exit. And then the main bar was empty, apart from the three Ghost Finders, and Brook, behind his counter.
“And still drinking time left on the clock,” said Brook, shrugging resignedly. “You’ve lost me some profits there. But I have to say, I’m surprised they stayed this long. Given that it’s dark out.”
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