by Cavendish
“Fearsome-looking figure, isn’t he? Yet he was a courageous – if somewhat foolhardy – man called Dr. Philip MacIver. He believed that by stuffing that beak with sweet-smelling herbs, he would keep the plague at bay. You see, it was thought that this plague and noxious fumes went hand in hand and, while there is a grain of truth in there somewhere, no one had actually thought to ask the rats about their involvement. Needless to say, poor Dr. MacIver perished of the plague soon after and, as you can imagine, there was no great rush of applicants for the position he had vacated.”
The group was firmly on Hannah’s side. She could almost believe they were real members of the public. All her stage fright had evaporated and she was enjoying herself and ready to deliver the reveal.
“So, what became of poor Eliza and her family, you may ask.” Hannah paused, as she had rehearsed so many times. She counted to five. “Well, go on then. Ask.”
The group laughed. Ailsa put up her hand. “What became of Eliza and her family?”
“I’m glad you asked that question, madam.” Hannah made a gathering gesture with her hands and the group moved closer. She looked around her before lowering her voice to a conspiratorial stage-whisper.
“They do say that her neighbors were scared they too would succumb so, late one night, while everyone else was in bed, a group of them gathered out there, in the Close. They came armed with wood and sturdy nails and boarded up poor Eliza’s room so none could escape. The cries of poor Eliza faded away after a couple of days, but it took nearly a month before the last child’s cry was heard. Now what do you suppose that child lived on for all those weeks?”
“Ratatouille?”
Hannah jokingly rounded on the light-hearted male heckler with the ginger hair. “Ah, I see you are a man of discernment, well versed in the culinary arts, sir. Maybe you are right. Or maybe he feasted on something that tasted a little more like…pork.”
Laughter, exclamations of mock disgust and a few nods showed Hannah she had delivered her lines well.
“Now, good people, we must hasten away to the house where I reside and I will tell you how Henderson Close came by its name. Please be careful. The ground is more uneven here.”
Hannah led her group through a narrow doorway, down to the left, and they stopped outside a tenement, with a partially open door leading into Murdoch Maclean’s print shop.
“Are we all here?” Hannah began a head count, but caught a glimpse of a woman disappearing around a corner further up the Close. Hannah called out to her. “No, madam. It’s this way, if you please. We go there later.”
She was aware of puzzled looks among the group. Ailsa spoke up. “It’s OK, we’re all here.”
Hannah counted. Ten. “Well, I definitely saw someone go down there. I’d better check. Maybe a visitor managed to get in before opening time. Please, ladies and gentlemen, wait here for a moment.” Hannah set off.
“I’ll come with you,” Ailsa said, “just in case. If there’s someone down here that shouldn’t be, I’ll deal with them.”
Within a few seconds, Hannah and Ailsa had rounded the corner. The short passageway contained closed doors – each of which they checked.
“Locked,” Ailsa said. “Exactly as they should be.”
In less than a minute they had reached the brick wall blocking up the rest of the passageway.
“This used to be an alley,” Hannah said, recognition flashing into her mind.
“Not just any alley, either.” Ailsa pointed to the perpetual dark stain on the ground.
Hannah shivered. “Miss Carmichael.”
“Looks like you’ve had the perfect initiation.” Ailsa smiled.
Chapter Two
Four a.m. Hannah stared out of the living room window of her small flat above a coffee shop on the Royal Mile.
By day bustling with as many nationalities as a UN meeting, now all was quiet. A stiff breeze sent discarded sweet wrappers swirling and dancing along the street. Hannah cradled her coffee mug and turned away.
Two table lamps at either end of the room cast a warm, comforting glow. Hannah rarely switched on the main light, preferring to relax, bathed in a gentle, candle-like softness.
She thought over her strange experience during her dress rehearsal that morning. She knew what she had seen – however impossible that might appear. Perhaps it had been a trick they played on new staff. Maybe one of them had been behind one of those locked doors.
In a few hours, she would begin her first official day. What if she saw that…whatever it was…again? How would she react? Ignore it? Could she even do that? Instinct had ruled her reactions earlier, but if her mind was playing tricks on her, as Ailsa and at least some – if not all – her colleagues appeared to believe, she would be humiliated in front of the general public. Someone might complain. Great start to her dream job.
Think back calmly. What exactly did I see?
In the sole fleeting glimpse, she had taken in a tall, slim woman in a long brown skirt and matching jacket, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a hat. Old-fashioned. Not unlike a photograph she had of her great-great grandmother, taken sometime in the 1880s.
In her mind, she replayed the reactions of some of her colleagues. Puzzlement, incomprehension, skepticism even, on one face after another. All except one.
Mairead.
Hannah searched for the young woman’s surname. Ferguson. Mairead Ferguson. That was it. Her expression had been different than the rest. Surprise yes, but something else. She had nodded, almost imperceptibly, but it had been a nod nonetheless.
Exhaustion overwhelmed Hannah and this time she was fairly sure she would sleep, because now she knew what she was going to do.
* * *
Hannah arrived an hour before her first tour was due. She needed to see the one person who she was almost certain had seen what she had seen.
“Mairead!”
The girl smiled at her. She was already dressed for her role as Emily, a young kitchen maid.
Hannah lowered her voice. “Before anyone else gets here, could I have a word? It’s about what happened yesterday.”
“Yes, of course.” Mairead wound her long blonde hair around her hand before tucking it firmly under her white servant’s cap.
Might as well go straight for the jugular. “You’ve seen her too, haven’t you?”
Mairead’s eyes opened wider. “Seen who?”
“The woman…ghost…what I saw yesterday.”
Mairead cast her eyes downward and nodded.
“Is it a wind-up?”
Mairead shook her head. “No. When I saw it, I was on my own.”
“Who…what is it?”
“I’ve no idea. I used to be skeptical about ghosts, but not now.”
“And you’ve only seen it once?”
Mairead nodded. Her face had paled. When she spoke, her voice wavered, as if she wasn’t sure if she should tell Hannah. “About a month after I started. One of the visitors dropped a glove in the Close, so I went to get it for her. I saw a woman in Victorian dress, who turned down the alley where Miss Carmichael was murdered, and then vanished.”
“Did you think she looked a bit…out of place?” Hannah stopped. Out of place? Of course she was out of place. She couldn’t even be there! But Mairead caught on to her meaning.
“She certainly looked too well-dressed to be out and about in Henderson Close in the time period she was dressed for.”
“I suppose the obvious suspect is Miss Carmichael herself, but has she been seen by anyone else. I mean, really? I know she’s supposed to haunt the place, but isn’t that simply one of those convenient ghost stories to please the punters?”
“Don’t let Ailsa hear you call the visitors punters. She hates it. But to answer your question, I honestly don’t know for sure. I have had visitors who have said they’ve seen something out of the corner of the
ir eye. One man swore a raggedy little boy tugged at his arm. The poor man went white and he was shaking. I’d say, with the sort of murky history Henderson Close has witnessed, anything is possible, but, as for Miss Carmichael—”
The staff room door opened and Ailsa and a male colleague entered, dressed for their roles. They greeted Hannah and Mairead.
“Well, Hannah,” Ailsa said, “first time solo today. How are the nerves?”
Hannah had been so preoccupied with thoughts of the spectral that her butterflies of yesterday hadn’t materialized. Now, they came flying in with a vengeance. She made a rocking motion with her hand.
“You’ll be fine. Let’s hope your vanishing friend doesn’t choose to make a repeat appearance.”
* * *
She didn’t, and Hannah’s confidence grew with each tour. She relaxed, joked with the tour groups, enjoyed friendly banter and all thoughts of Miss Carmichael faded away.
A week later, she felt as if she had been doing the job for months.
“I’m hearing good reports about you,” Ailsa said. “You’ve really taken to this and I’m delighted. I have to admit I had my doubts. Your CV was a wee bit sparse, to say the least.”
Hannah grimaced. “I had to make the best of what I’d got in the way of transferable skills. At least my teaching background helped. I know how to make presentations.”
“I think it was your Amateur Dramatics credentials that probably swung it for you. Your improvisation test was excellent.”
“Thank you.”
“No more mysterious encounters?”
“None.”
“You’re getting used to the atmosphere down there. It can be really daunting at first. We had one young chap who lasted one tour. I heard screaming, not far from Miss Carmichael’s corner. When I got down there, all hell had let loose. He was shaking, white as a corpse and pointing at something it seemed he could see but no one else could. He was babbling incoherently and his eyes.… Well, I’ve never seen anything like it. Needless to say the visitors were well and truly spooked. One lady fainted in my arms and had to be carried out. As for him, he took to his heels and we never saw him again.”
“What had he seen? Or thought he’d seen?”
Ailsa shrugged. “No idea. He never told us. Wouldn’t answer our phone calls and sent his elder brother to collect his P45.”
“But no one else saw whatever it was?”
“No. They all said the same thing. They were enjoying the tour. He had been telling them the usual stories and they all thought he was very good. Then, suddenly, he stopped in mid-sentence, pointed straight ahead and started screaming.”
A shiver passed through Hannah.
“Cold?” Ailsa asked. “It’s a wee bit chilly today.”
“No, I’m fine. Just thinking about that poor lad. He must have been terrified to behave like that.”
“Yes, I suppose he must.” Ailsa sighed. “Probably best he left when he did though. We can’t have the visitors upset. Bad for business. Ah well, better get on. Keep up the good work.”
She left and Hannah glanced up at the clock in the staff room. Ten fifteen. Forty-five minutes before her first tour. Enough time to fully investigate Murdoch Maclean’s print shop. She had noticed a pile of old local newspapers in one corner and, with any luck, she might find a juicy story to add to her collection. It would be good to ring the changes a bit. Keep her presentation fresh.
She opened the entrance to Henderson Close and made her way down the stairs, torch in hand. Emergency lighting was on twenty-four hours a day, but it would be too dark to see in the printer’s shop. The papers were yellowed with age and the print had faded to grey.
She was alone down there. The silence wrapped around her like an uncomfortable cloak. Goosebumps rose on her arms and her palms broke into a cold sweat. Contrary to what Ailsa had said, it hadn’t been particularly chilly upstairs but down here…it felt as if someone had opened a fridge door. Probably because no one had been down here since yesterday, but.…
Hannah shook her head. My imagination’s off again. A blast of cold air slapped her in the face. Her ears pricked. Footsteps.
“Hello,” Hannah called. “Anyone down here?”
Silence. Hannah exhaled and waited. Then, satisfied that her ears must have been playing tricks on her, she carried on, her torch bouncing shadows off the walls and floor.
She had one foot over the threshold of the shop when muffled sounds wafted toward her. Chattering, cries, horses and carts clattering on the street. Growing louder. Nearer. Hannah froze. She clapped her hands to her ears and squeezed her eyes tight shut. This isn’t happening. Behind closed eyelids, she was aware that her surroundings were becoming lighter. Then there was the smell. Horse manure, human waste, rotting vegetables, cheap tobacco all mingling in a soup of impossible reality.
“Well, lassie, will ye be coming in, or going oot?”
The voice was male and accompanied by a strong smell of ink.
Hannah slowly lowered her hands and dared to open her eyes.
A man who looked almost old enough to be her father stood, composition roller in his hand, all ready to apply to the old-fashioned bed of type prior to printing. For a second, Hannah recalled seeing an old ‘hot metal’ printing press on a school trip to a newspaper. Yet, here it was, being used by.… “Murdoch Maclean?” she asked.
“Aye, the very same.” The man sounded impatient.
Hannah could barely hear him for the clamor of noise from the street. She nodded and gave him a half-smile before stepping back into the Close, leaving Murdoch Maclean to carry on with his printing. She retched at the stench from the gutters and the fresh manure in the middle of the street. Hannah swallowed hard repeatedly and forced herself to look upward. Tenements soared eight or nine stories – or even higher. Above them, sky, where grey clouds promised rain.
Hannah’s bewildered gaze returned to street level and took in the poverty. Women in ragged shawls, some staring and pointing at her. Of course, she was dressed a century out of date.
Barefoot children, coated in grime, played chase. Men leaned on rusting iron railings puffing on old clay pipes.
A coal merchant’s wagon clattered past, his massive piebald shire horse whinnying.
Hannah shut her eyes tight again, willing the scene to go away. Panic welled up inside her, rushing like a geyser. Somebody brushed up against her. Took her arm. The street noises vanished.
“Hannah! Are you all right?”
Hannah opened her eyes. Instant relief as she saw Mairead’s concerned expression. “Oh thank God.”
“You look terrible, Hannah. You were clutching your head. Do you have a headache or something?”
Hannah gave a light laugh, as she took in the familiar surroundings. “Or something, I think. I just had the weirdest experience ever. I mean, totally off the wall.”
“I came down to tell you your eleven o’clock tour is comprised of one complete party of Americans and they’ve arrived half an hour early. Someone gave them the wrong time or they got confused or something. Anyway, Ailsa said if you want to get started now, that’s fine with her. I switched all the lights on. What were you doing down here anyway, all by yourself?”
Hannah started back with Mairead. “I wanted to see if I could find some more stories to use, but if I told them what just happened to me, I’d have a harder time convincing them it was true than I’d have of persuading them that the stain is actually Miss Carmichael’s blood.”
Mairead blinked. “Tell me about it later. I want all the details. But now we’d better get back. When Ailsa says ‘jump’, she expects a leap.”
Hannah approached the Henderson house – and Murdoch Maclean’s print shop – accompanied by a dry mouth and a wave of nausea. She ran her tongue over parched lips. Seeing the silent room with its Victorian printing press, type blocks and all
the tools of a printer’s trade, she offered up a silent prayer of thanks. The pile of yellowing newspapers lay stacked against the wall, but Hannah no longer had any desire to search through them. Just let me get through this. She took a deep breath.
“Now ladies and gentlemen, here we have the house once occupied by my employer – Sir William Henderson. He and his family lived at the top of the building before the rebuilding took place. They lived nine stories up so, you see, Edinburgh was truly the home of the first skyscrapers. Sir William was a generous benefactor, giving money to countless good causes and, because he was also a canny businessman, he made sure everyone knew how generous he was.”
“Oh my God!”
A woman clapped her hand to her mouth. Her eyes wild. Terrified. The others in her party of Americans clustered around her.
Hannah grasped the woman’s trembling free hand. “What happened? Do you need some air?”
The woman shook her head and lowered the hand from her mouth. Her cheeks were bloodless, her lips ashen. “I saw.… I don’t know what I saw. But it was there.”
“What was there, Lindy? Where?” A man – by the ring on his finger, her husband – put his arm around her as the crowd murmured among themselves.
Hannah’s palms grew clammy. She gently released Lindy’s hand and cast quick glances around the room. All seemed normal enough.
“Lindy?” she asked. “Was it a person you saw?”
The woman stared at her for a moment, then gave a vigorous shake of her head. Her husband spoke. “What was it then? An animal?”
He addressed Hannah. “She had one of these turns a couple of days ago in York.”
The others nodded and muttered.
The man continued, “We were all in this pub – The Golden Crown. It’s supposed to be haunted. We hadn’t been there ten minutes before Lindy screamed. Swore she’d seen a shadow flash across the bar.”
“This one wasn’t a shadow.” Lindy’s color was returning to her cheeks. “It was a dark shape. A figure. But not like a real person. More like…a scarecrow. Yes, that’s the best I can describe it. A scarecrow. Eight, nine feet tall. With arms and legs that were no more than.… They looked like tree branches. No. Poles. Wooden poles. And it was standing right behind you.” She pointed at Hannah, who swung round. Nothing there.
